








<* '• . . • ,0' 



,4 0, 






••' ^K 



f: jP-n*.. ••' 



45°^ 















wO* .•^1.'. *> 



^"^ ''.sf^s** "*<> A* *j(iOOfc' "^ ^ »*^5IIEsr« "^ a' 






*' "i 









ip'"*-. 



-^°*. 







j^ ..... 



*. -^<<« A 



■■^0 



?:.' .0'' 



• ^y 



♦ - . • 




V » ' • •* ^^ 






^ • • • • 
























o_ * 



V ^0 







o. *•,, 



• .♦' 






0* •• 












■n*.. 






V-'-v*^ .-- -♦- 



<» 

V .'•• 



\ *^..** :iS«-. \./ .'^^v %/ /^ 






<?«. 



. <^ o^ 



^' ,^ 






.♦ >' 



*« . . « 



.-^> ..-*. %t 







^^ '" 0^ .o*^-*.'^0. ,^^" .•^'-•-. '^^ 






<^ *•-«»' <^> 









0, •••<'• A." '^ 








.0^ o 



^<=u 




A^ A 



• o > 




''^0^ 




-oK 






^°-^* 



^ China's ^ 
Open Door 



A Sketch of Chinese Life 
and History i^ ^ 

By ROUNSE VELLE WILDMAN, M.A. 

Consul General of the United States at Hong Kong, 
Author of ''Tales of Malayan Coast,'" etc. ^ ^ ^ 



With an Introduction by *' 

Charles Denby ' 

Former U.S. Mmister to China. 



> ILL USTRA TED ^ 



Boston: Lothrop Publishing Compa 



ny 



38567 



Library of Gon^.r«s« 

AUG 25 1900 



SECCMP COfV. 

Odive.fld t<i 

ORDER DIVISION, 
SEP 6 1900 



COPYRIGHT, 1900, 

B Y 

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



74311 




^.^ 

s^^^ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEH PAGE 

I. A Word at the Open Door 1 

II. As TO THE Proper Eeading op Chinese His- 
tory 4 

III. Erom Euh-hi to Confucius 42 

IV. From the Tsin to the Tang Dynasties . . 63 
V. From Wu the Empress to the Last of the 

Mings 80 

VI. The Rise of the Manchu Dynasty .... 115 

VII. From Chien Lung to Hienfung 136 

VIII. From the Taiping Rebellion to the Chufoo 

Convention 160 

IX. Tung Chi and the Regency 184 

/X. The Reign op Kwang Su 205 

XL The Commercial Outlook 216 

XII. Canton, the Typical City 228 

XIII.^Peking, the Capital City 270 

XIV. The Boxer Uprising 301 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 

FACING 

Li Hung Chang Frontispiece 

As Old as China. The Wheelbarrow a Mode of 

Travel in China in Use for Ages 12 

Confucian Temple. Hall of Classics. Imperial 

Pavilion. Forbidden City, Peking 54 

Great Wall of China Looking North-east . . . 116 

Street Scene in Tientsin 150 

Panorama op Hong Kong 170 

Street in the Concession, Shanghai 190 

The Typical Chinese City, Canton on the Pearl. 
'*The Streetless City stretches away with its 
Maze of Shipping, broken Here and There by 
THE Towering Pawn-Shops and the Open Spaces 

about Yamens and Temples " 230 

The Cangue : A Form of Chinese Punishment. "It 
IS the Absence of Nerves that enables the 
Chinese to endure Pain as Well as Toil . . 266 
Camel Train. Outside the Peking Wall. Mili- 
tary Gate, showing Moat 274 

The Examination Halls, Peking, where the Best 
Student is esteemed the Greatest Man in 

China 294 

A Bird's-Eye View from the Gulf of Pechili to 
Peking. Showing the Route of the Relief 
Expedition of 1900 310 



INTRODUCTION. 

THIS book is a fit and much needed suc- 
cessor to the " Middle Kingdom," by 
Doctor S. S. Williams. As a digest of 
information touching China, the " Middle King- 
dom" must always rank first among the books 
which treat of that empire. Next to it this book 
will take its place in literature. 

Splendid as Williams's history is, the student 
sometimes complains of dryness; but no such 
charge can be made against the accomplished au- 
thor of this book, to whom experience in many 
forms of writing has taught the lesson that the 
first requisite of success is to please the reader. 
In this, Mr. Wildman has preeminently succeeded. 
This book is written in pure English. It is clear 
and concise in language, easy to understand, and 
opens up vistas of information which, until now, 
have been unknown to the general reader. At 
the beginning the keynote is struck — the author 
knows his subject. One sees plainly that he has 
not drawn his description from books or from the 



viii INTR OB UCTION, 

chance observations of the hurrying tourist, but 
from the passing of many clays among the Chinese, 
and the watching, during many years, their actual 
life and the political phases of the imperial gov- 
ernment. The author's own sound declaration is 
that to understand Chinese history you must know 
the people. Knowing them, he has built up, stej) 
by step, a succinct history of China from its early 
days down to the ujirisal of the " Boxers." I shall 
not undertake in this introduction to review, page 
by page, the contents of this volume, but simply 
to draw attention to the starting-point and the 
successive stages of historic lore which, in admira^ 
ble sequence, are brought to our attention. 

At the beginning it is asserted that the charac- 
teristics and peculiarities of the Chinese must be 
understood in order to judge them aright, and then 
follows a succi]ict, but complete description of 
these characteristics. Lying at the bottom of 
Chinese character is respect for "face." The for- 
eign resident of China knows that he must not 
reprove his " boy " before strangers, that he must 
not unjustly punish him. Once, on one of our 
men-of-war, when a servant, as the other servants 
believed, was wrongfully discharged, every China- 
man aboard the ship left. The author illustrates 
this underlying principle by many examples, and 



INTRODUCTION, ix 

he carries his observance into the highest realms 
of governmental polity. I well remember that 
the members of the Tsung Li Yamen complained 
that some foreign representative made them lose 
" face " by pounding on the table and bawling at 
them. The portion of the book which discusses 
" face " is somewhat new in its treatment, and 
should be carefully considered, because it fur- 
nishes an explanation of many events in Chinese 
liistory wliich, before, were obscure. 

To the Chinese, as Mr. Wildman intimates, 
" face " takes the place of patriotism. The dis- 
cussion of politics, except in the secret societies, 
has been an unknown art in China. The struggle 
for existence has been too intense to waste time 
on the doings of the mandarins or the foreigners. 
Well does the author say that, in place of patriot- 
ism, you find " untiring industry, marvelous econ- 
omy, filial piety, and a calm respect for law." 

Americans are the most wasteful people in the 
world. I look out now from my window over 
thousands and thousands of acres on which the 
tall corn is waving its silken tassel. When Oc- 
tober comes the harvesters will drive wagons 
along the rows, and they will pull the ears only, 
and leave the shuck, the fodder, and the stack un- 
touched. Cattle will be turned in to feed on 



X INTRODUCTION. 

these during the winter, but they will destroy 
more than they eat. In China each blade of grass 
is uprooted and put to some use. At Swatow 
once there were many refugees, Christians, who 
had refused to contribute to the fund for the gods 
and the temples. The missionaries were paying 
the adults for their support a Mexican dollar a 
month — then about seventy-five cents of our 
money — and it sufficed. But the author has told 
of this better than I can. 

The dress, the manners, the customs, of the 
Chinese are described with a master's hand. On 
this plan of picturing the common every-day 
doings of his countrymen Macaulay wrote his 
history. 

Ancestral worship — the fundamental principle 
of Chinese policy — is well and forcibly explained. 
Chinese conservatism, which has held China fixed 
as the northern star, while the nations around her 
have tottered and fallen, is thoroughly elucidated. 

Having pictured the Chinaman as he is, the 
author takes up the history of China from the re- 
motest period, and brings it down to the present 
time. It is not necessary for me to follow him 
through the various dynasties whose chronicles 
are touched on sufficiently to fill out the great 
picture of China. From the reign of Fuh-hi, 2852 



INTR OD UCTION, xi 

B. c, the contemporaneous history of China com- 
menced, and thenceforward the historical records 
are complete. The author pays admirable tribute 
to Confucius. Nowhere is there a more correct 
estimate of the character of the sage. Through 
the great invasion of the Mongols, who conquered 
China in 1276, and the conquest of the Manchus 
in 1644, the book goes on, reading like the pages 
of a historical romance. Names that you have 
barely heard in your life, for instance, those of 
Kublai Khan, Marco Polo, the Chaus and the 
Hans, stand out here in interesting portrayal. It 
is wonderful what a mass of information has 
been collected in this book. Incidentally we learn 
about Burmah, Korea, Siam, Tonquin, Thibet, 
Japan, in fact the whole of Asia. It cannot be 
expected that I should agree with everything that 
the author says ; but as I am not reviewing his 
book, I do not feel called upon to specify the 
points wherein I differ with him. They are not 
many. He treats, I think, the missionaries rather 
cavalierly, and does not give them as a class the 
credit they deserve. It is strongly brought out 
in this book that China has never lost its indi- 
viduality. Indeed, the Chinese have absorbed 
their conquerors. Nominally the Manchu dynasty 
reigns to-day; but the fate of China will be deter- 



xii INTR OB UCTION, 

mined by the people, and, excepting twenty mil- 
lions of Manchus, they are Chinese. 

On the opium question the author is lenient. 
It will not do to compare opium with alcohol. 
The drug is always simply brutalizing, and dele- 
terious. All things are either good or bad, 
and the use of opium is unquestionably bad. 
It is the curse of China. I cannot too highly 
commend the author's history of what may be 
called our own times in China — say from 1842 
down to 1900. A correct and most interesting 
account is given of a period which has been 
treated with accuracy by Williams, but to whose 
treatment Mr. Wildman has added the touches of 
glowing and sparkling style. He has brought 
out many new facts, and his chronology of events 
is perfect. In the sweep of this panoramic book, 
we come at last to the reign of Hienfeng, the 
Taiping Rebellion, the making of the treaties of 
1857, the advance on Peking in 1859, the re- 
pulse of the allies at Taku, the renewal of the 
attack in 1860, the taking of Peking, the rati- 
fication of the treaties, the induction of China 
into the family of nations, and the outbreak of 
1900. A fund of anecdote and character paint- 
ing is found in these pages, much of which is 
absolutely new. Alas, in some respects, books 



INTRODUCTION, xlil 

about China will have to be rewritten! Japan 
"turned a new leaf " when she taught the sleeping 
giant what modern fire-arms could accomplish. 
Mr. Wildman describes Eastern diplomacy with 
many touches of satire, but recent events have 
changed its tone. New men are coming on the 
stage ; and if China is not to be partitioned, she 
will demand the rights which international law 
insures ; then there will be no more pictures of 
vacillation, evasion, trickery, but a stand-up fight 
for justice, in which the conscience of the world 
will be at her back. 

Books on China are greatly confined to disqui- 
sitions. The " tenderfoot " seems driven to ad- 
vising China. He sees at a glance how necessary 
are schools, railroads, trained soldiers, and espe- 
cially is he conscious of the bad morality of the 
Chinese officials. When a gentleman, who wanted 
to sell something, once gave me a splendid 
essay, showing up all Chinese corruptions, and 
asked me to translate it and send it to the 
Yamen, I inquired whether, if he wanted to sell 
locomotives in England, he would prepare an 
elaborate attack on the House of Lords, and 
primogeniture, and the Prince of Wales and all 
the officials. He said he did not think he would, 
and then I asked him why he did this thing 



xiv INTR OB UCTION, 

in China. He did not have any satisfactory an- 
swer. 

Mr. Wildman has not fallen into this error. 
The book is valuable, because it tells you accu- 
rately, with dates, things you know, and many 
things that you do not know. From 1860 to the 
summer of 1900 the history is minutely accurate. 
The old, spectacular, historic Li stands out in his 
well-knoAvn lineaments, and the Semiramis of 
China, the Empress-Regent Tzi Tsu, fills some 
pages of description. The treatment of Korea, 
the episode mth France, the Japanese war, are 
all told of, with many side-lights which illumine 
the bare facts. At the last we have the account 
of the seizure of Chinese territory by Germany, 
Russia, England, and France, and a luminous 
recital of the conduct of our Government touch- 
ing the " Open Door," and we are brought down 
to the beginning of the "Boxer" movement. 
With this uprisal for a text, some future writer 
will unravel the tangled skein of the Chinese 
situation. 

Mr. Wildman's position as consul at Hong- 
kong has given him great facilities to acquire 
knowledge as to trade, and the steps necessary 
to secure it. His chapter on that subject will be 
worth the price of this book to the merchant. 



INTR OD UCTION. xv 

Trade is a field which the ordinary tourist leaves 
severely alone. There is more competition in 
China than in almost any land on the globe. 
The syndicates of many nations are on the ground, 
and, since the appearance of the Germans in the 
arena, prices are cut to the lowest figure. China 
is overrun with articles marked, " Made in Ger- 
many ; " but goods of English and American make 
excel them in quality. Labels are counterfeited, 
but I always found the Chinese officials ready to 
arrest and punish the offenders. There was, at 
Tientsin, a notable case involving the putting of 
" Indian Head " labels on cotton cloth made in 
China. 

One of the most readable and most accurate 
chapters in the book is the one on Canton. This 
bewildering bazaar city is described in the most 
pleasing style. It is a vast show-shop, where 
silverware, jewelry, articles in ivory, embroideries, 
rare furniture, everything that the mind can con- 
ceive of, is made under your very eye. You may 
stand in a street six feet wide, and watch the 
evolution under the workman's hand of the most 
precious curios, and when they are finished you 
can buy them at reasonable prices. 

Canton is the most interesting city in China, or, 
perhaps, in its own realm of the manufacture of 



xvi INTRODUCTION, 

objects of art, in the world. It is the typical city 
of the empire as Peking is its metropolis. A 
chapter on the capital city of China, supplied at 
Mr. Wildman's request, embodies my own study 
of Peking, and will, it is hoped, fall in line with 
the other descriptive matter. 

This book is a splendid production. It does 
honor to the learning, the faculty of composition, 
and the indefatigable industry of the author. 



(1/k.a.^^J^ Gb 



«^ 






Chinas Open Door. 
I. 

A WORD AT THE OPEN BOOR. 

CHINESE HISTORY becomes interesting 
when you know, or think you know, the 
Chinese. Even a superficial acquaintance 
explains many things in their national records that 
on first introduction strikes one as both inane and 
impossible. Chinese history cannot be compared 
with that of other nations any more than you can 
parallel the character of the Chinese with that of 
any contemporary race. It is a repetition of it- 
self, many times repeated. The same causes have 
produced the same effects for four thousand years. 
The causes lie in the character of the Chinese, and 
are seemingly unchangeable. The Chinamen of 
3000 B.C. are the identical Chinamen that greeted 
us at the opening of the Treaty Ports. A story 
like Mark Twain's delightful " A Yankee in 
King Arthur's Court " would be impossible from 



2 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

a Cliinese standpoint. If Confucius had returned 
to China a thousand years after his death, he 
would have found everything substantially as he 
left it. The greatest change in Chinese life was 
wrought by Confucius himself. He remodeled 
the entire system of thought, and gave his country- 
men an intellectual life, — a feat that, to one who 
has lived among the Chinese and daily experienced 
their inertia, suspicion, and conservatism, seems 
little short of the miraculous. 

It is not necessary, however, to personally know 
the Chinese to admire and marvel at their history 
when taken as a grand result, an accomplished 
fact. Since the dawn of history China has been 
a civilized and religious nation with a written his- 
tory. She has had a continuous national life, and 
has never been driven from her " Garden of 
Eden." She has had wars as sanguinary, as ad- 
mirably conducted, and of as great magnitude, as 
any of the nations have had from Egypt to Amer- 
ica. Her arms have generally been successful; 
but if she were conquered it meant the absorption 
of her conquerors. There have been good kings 
and bad kings in tiresome rotation; there have 
been famines and floods ; but there has been no per- 
manent decay or death in her national life up to 
the coming of the European. And who knows 



A WORD AT THE BOOR, 3 

but that the " break up of China " will be but 
another case of Chinese history repeating itself, 
and that she will absorb the white man as fast as 
he gains admission to her walled cities, and so 
establish within the next century — and what is 
a century to Cliina ! — a new dynasty that will 
insure her existence as a nation for another thou- 
sand years. 

Why have not other nations of the past discov- 
ered the secret of China's everlasting life, and 
modeled their own upon it? It is because the 
secret lives in every Chinaman's face, in his every 
act, a secret only to those who will not see. 
The Egyptian, the Persian, and the Greek would 
have to be born a Chinaman in order to take ad- 
vantage of this — the so-styled secret ; they would 
have to possess fully the Chinese character, which 
is as different from their own in every point of 
contact as is the atmosphere of Mars from that of 
the earth. 

If Chinese character can be given an individu- 
ality and pictured so that the reader will know 
and see the Chinaman as we know and see him in 
China, then Chinese history will have a throb and 
Chinese life a fascination. We will be standing 
before China's slowly opening door with one foot 
within the threshold. 



CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 



11. 



AS TO THE PROPER READING OF 
CHINESE HISTORY, 

THE Westerner must assume a new view 
in attempting to understand the his- 
tory of China. He must first know of 
Chinese peculiarities and characteristics, and this, 
of itself, is a new study. For instance, to the 
Occidental the performance of saving " Face " 
is a comedy. We attend its rehearsal on the 
street and in our own compounds until its plot 
becomes so familiar that it fails to arrest our 
attention unless we happen to remember that the 
impassioned actors are giving us an object lesson 
that typifies one of the all-controlling features of 
Chinese life. When there is bad blood between 
Ah Ming our "boy" and Chung the '' Cookee " they 
do not come immediately to blows, which would 
be dangerous. They go into the street, and 
commence to revile each other and each other's 
ancestors at the top of their voices. As a crowd 
collects they grow more intense, and every minute 



''SAVING face:* 5 

threaten to spring at each other's throat. When 
they have worked themselves up to a pitch of 
maniacal delirium that promises apoplexy, two 
men step out of the crowd, and grasp the boy and 
the cookee by the arm. Both go through a fierce 
theati'ical struggle for freedom. Then they turn the 
phials of their wrath on their peacemakers, and to 
the simple on-looker it would seem that the keep- 
ers of peace would be killed for their pains. In 
the meantime Ming and his peacemaker, and 
Chung and his, are some rods apart, and separated 
by an interested crowd. Then with a final appal- 
ling burst they tear away from their guardians, 
and depart calmly on their separate " pidgins." 
They have let their bad blood preserve their "face," 
and, save for mutual hoarseness, are unhurt. Time 
and again I have watched one of these theatrical 
exhibitions. In the gathering crowd will often be 
one or more native policemen. No one smiles, 
unless some mishap occurs, then every one will 
scream with laughter. No one thinks of interfer- 
ing until the right moment, and every one knows 
exactly what the end will be. It is purely a 
forensic contest. A boat-woman whose husband 
has corrected her in the morning and put her in a 
temper, will v/ait until he is out of sight, and then 
go to the most crowded spot along the wharves. 



6 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

ascend a pile of lumber, and commence to revile 
her daughter-in-law, who is not present, or any 
member of the crowd who may address a scoffing 
word to her. She will go on for an hour, jesticu- 
lating, running through the entire gamut of the 
Delsarte school, until the audience leave, or it is 
time for her to get back to her boat. She has 
asserted her rights to the free speech which her 
husband denied her, and said all the things to the 
world at large that she would like to have said 
to him. Her " face " is saved. The saving of 
face starts at the Pink Palace at Peking, and goes 
all through Chinese life. It has changed history, 
wrecked dynasties, remade religions, and caused a 
multitude of law-suits. Its complexities and rami- 
fications are beyond the comprehension of the 
Westerner. An Occidental synonym might be 
prestige, in its commonest definition. A China- 
man who loses his face loses his credit, his stand- 
ing, his prestige among his fellows, and becomes 
the laughing-stock of the meanest coolie. In 
1796 Lord Macartney was sent to Peking by the 
British government to try and open diplomatic 
intercourse. The Emperor Chien Lung feared to 
refuse to receive the ambassador ; but he saved his 
face before his people by flying over the vessel on 
which the noble lord ascended the Peiho, a flag, 



''FACE'' IN CHINESE HISTORY. 7 

which read in Chinese " Tribute Bearer from the 
Country of England." In June, 1873, the Em- 
peror Tung Chih, to the gratification of the for- 
eign ministers, graciously condescended to reoeive 
them in audience. It was looked upon for the 
moment as a triumph of Western diplomacy and 
firmness until it was discovered that Frederick E. 
Low, the American minister, and the ministers 
for England, France, Russia, Netherlands, and 
Japan, had been received by the Son of Heaven in 
the Pavilion of Purple Light, where his majesty re- 
ceived the envoys of tributary states. Again the 
Chinese face had been saved. The suicide of gal- 
lant Admiral Ting, after the occupation of Port Ar- 
thur, was but the last of a long succession of like 
cases of saving face by means of death. This char- 
acteristic is not confined to individuals ; it governs 
the attitude of one village or clan towards another, 
and the strife that takes place to preserve the bal- 
ance of face often becomes a vendetta that lasts for 
generations. The history of China when read in 
the light of a knowledge of this national charac- 
teristic will reveal the reason for many acts that 
before seemed without sense or rhyme. 

It must be borne in mind, however, that this 
struggle to preserve face is nt>t to be confounded 
with patriotism or love of country. There is no 



8 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

National Face that the 400,000,000 of China are 
sworn to protect with their Kves. With them it 
is every man for himself, and the country for it- 
self. I will wager that the Japanese-Chinese war, 
a historical fact, is not known to one-tenth of the 
population of China ; and if they did know of it, 
they would not feel any more interest in it than 
did those who were supposed to have taken an 
active part in the campaign. Public spirit is ab- 
solutely wanting. In its place is a deep-seated in- 
difference, that is tempered with a calm respect for 
law and power. The law may be bad and the 
power tyrannical, but that is no business of those 
who have to obey. The life of China has been pre- 
served through the centuries by moral rather than 
physical forces. Early in 1898, just after Russia 
had occupied Port Arthur, Germany Kia Chou, 
England Wei Hai Wai, and France Kwang 
Chowan, and it looked as though the dismember- 
ment of China was at hand, a delegation of rich 
merchants from Canton waited upon me by a pre- 
vious appointment, and proposed to buy from the 
viceroy of the Two Kwangs, and from the indi- 
vidual owners, all the property on the Honam side 
of Canton, build wharves, reclaim the waste land, 
and then remove all their big mercantile interests 
there. In fact, they proposed to create a rival to 



LACK OF PATRIOTISM, 9 

Canton, and then cede it to the United States if 
we would give it the protection of our flag. If 
we deemed it not feasible to go into inland China, 
they further proposed to buy a large island adja- 
cent to Hong Kong and make it their emporium. 
In reply to my many questions they showed no 
love foi their own flag, or interest in the " break- 
up" of China, further than it affected their per- 
sons. 

I was in San Francisco during the Chinese- 
Japanese War. The little colony of Japanese in 
that city raised a patriotic fund, and offered their 
services to their fatherland, while *' Chinatown," 
numbering over 70,000 souls and representing 
many millions of capital, did nothing nor made 
any pretensions. The Chinaman pays his taxes, 
and submits to all the "squeezes," and rightly 
considers it as so much money lost, as it never 
reappears in roads, canals, or public buildings. 
He does not even have police protection or jus- 
tice for it. There is no such thing as politics 
in the empire outside the court, where it is noth- 
ing more than intrigue. Appointments to office 
are either the result of literary examinations or 
court favoritism. Even the claim of a success- 
ful candidate at a triennial examination has to 
be backed by a substantial kumshaw at Peking 



10 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

before he obtains the coveted official appoint- 
ment. The salaries of all officials in Cliina are 
merely nominal, and in themselves would not be 
worth the endeavor of an honest man to obtain. 
The government is in a sense patriarchal, and 
like all patriarchs is supposed to be old enough, 
wise enough, and strong enough to do without 
the advice of its children. In the war of 1860 
between England and China, the invading army 
employed Chinese not only for carrying baggage 
and throwing up intrenchments, but a corps of 
several thousand strong was carefully drilled to 
plant scaling-ladders and handle ammunition ; and 
at the storming of the Taku forts it showed un- 
expected bravery and an exultant pride in the 
success of its new master. Patriotism in its na- 
tive land was an unknown quantity, while rations 
and good pay were something that every China- 
man could understand. Curiously enough Chi- 
nese officialdom did not look upon the members 
of this corps as actual traitors, and the only pun- 
ishment they received was to have their queus 
cut off. The Chinese government itself, the mo- 
ment the war was over, turned around and begged 
of their conquerors the loan of a number of Eng- 
lish officers to drill their men so that they would 
equal this corj)s of, what the world would style. 



ECONOMY A SCIENCE. 11 

traitors and renegades. When Knblai Khan was 
strugglmg for the conquest of China, he found his 
progress stopped by the strongly fortified city of 
Siang Yang on the bank of the Han River. His 
general, Ashu, soon discovered that its capture 
without the aid of ships would be impossible. 
He set about the construction of a fleet of war- 
junks. The Mogul soldiers were, however, not 
sailors ; and proclamations were posted all over the 
enemy's country, offering good wages and good 
rewards for men who were able to manage ships. 
More than 70,00 Chinese responded, and enlisted 
to fight their own fatherland under the banners 
of its most inveterate enemy. 

China has no national airl 

The very absence of patriotism shows again that 
comparisons with China are only possible by con- 
trast, and that patriotism is not necessary to in- 
sure the existence of a nation. There are other 
characteristics that take its place, among which 
are untiring industry, marvelous economy, filial 
piety, and, as has been before said, a calm respect 
for law. No Occidental can comprehend the full 
significance of Chinese economy. Economy to the 
Chinese is more than a moral principle. It is an 
art and a science that has been perfected through 
the centuries. They realize better than we that the 



12 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

Lord made nothing without a purpose, and they 
have discovered what we have not — the purpose. 
The animal and vegetable kingdoms are as open 
books to the most ignorant villagers. Every weed 
has its use, and no part of the animal goes to 
waste. Two cents a day is a fair estimate per 
head of what it costs to feed 390,000,000 of 
China's 400,000,000. Rice, beans, garden vege- 
tables, supplemented with any kind of fish, make 
up their daily diet; and as simple as this is, 
often ten mouths have to be fed from a little 
plat of ground the size of a New England farm- 
yard, and the water with which to irrigate it 
brought from a long distance. Again, the soil 
has to be often literally made, and when made, 
held in place by embankments for fear that dur- 
ing the rainy season it will be washed over on a 
neighbor's land. They rake the seas with the 
same untiring thoroughness with which they cul- 
tivate the land ; and I often wonder when I see 
them returning with a catch of fish — none of 
which are larger than a corkscrew — if any ever 
escape to become respectable in size. The mo- 
ment the tide goes out — no matter what the hour 
— the muddy ocean reaches are swarming with 
(lelvers for mussels, crabs, and seaweed. Men, 
v/omen, and children, each armed with a board 



UNCHANGEABLENESS OF CHINA. 13 

skate, that will bear the weight of one leg while 
they propel themselves over the mud with the 
other, explore every inch of space for anything 
that can be eaten. I have watched them on a 
cold, bitter morning thus gleaning, the women 
carrying their month-old babies on their backs by 
the side of their bags of sea-plunder. The chilling 
water was up to the children's bare feet, and a 
wind was blowing in shore that made me turn 
back on my bicycle, and ride a mile to get warm. 
A pagoda stood against the sky above a bunch of 
low-spreading banyans, and a little colony of junks 
swung idly on the incoming tide, their great mat- 
ting sails slowly drying in the early morning sun. 
It was a picture for the artist and the political 
economist. The grinding industry and dwarfing 
economy of it all was, however, horribly revolting. 
If any one benefited by these hardships, in this 
generation or the next, there would be some hope 
for the betterment of the race ; but the Chinese 
coolie lives and dies by rule as his ancestors have 
been doing for six thousand years. If all our mis- 
sionaries in all our treaty ports could teach them, 
by precept or example, that cleanliness is next to 
Godliness, they would do more for China than even 
Confucius did. They would bring about a reform 
in the lives of Chinamen and in the body politic that 



14 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

would mean the opening of China's ports to West- 
ern civihzation and Western trade. As long as 
the Chinese are content to live in huts with their 
pigs and their fowls, and sleep and eat in their 
own filth, it is hard to open their eyes to the de- 
sirability of a clean heart or of American-made 
prints. I have been in country districts of China 
that were almost idealic in their beauty; every 
inch of cultivatable land was blooming with gen- 
erous crops, dotted at intervals with workers, their 
backs bent over a paddy-field, and on the lands of 
the foot-hills which were non-productive stood the 
stone huts of the population. From a distance 
the houses looked substantial, clean, and inviting. 
A group of a half-dozen would be sheltered by the 
branches of a guard of massive trees. The whole 
scene was charming; but, as you drew near, the 
beauty of the place faded away into a picture of 
such unnecessary uncle anliness and squalor, that 
you were conquered by the usual disgust. There 
was no reason for it, as all about there were hun- 
dreds of dry acres, and scores of clumps of trees. 

The land could be had rent free, and the soil is 
healthy ; and yet they would all huddle together, 
— men, children, pigs, and fowls, with possibly 
a shaggy China pony and a half dozen mangy 
curs. Under these conditions it is not long: be- 



NEGLECT OF SANITARY LAWS, 15 

fore even a sanitarium would become a pest-hole. 
I have been in a mandarin's palace that cost 
a lac of dollars, and had him point out to me 
with pride his artificial fish-pond, supremely un- 
conscious that a dead hen and a decayed cat 
were floating on its surface among the lily pads 
and lotus blooms. In the great central hall — 
the hall of his ancestors — he pointed out price- 
less stone pictures, thousand-year-old vases, and 
exquisite black-wood carvings, while I held my 
nose over a pool of malarious filth that was oozing 
from under the steps ten feet away. The result 
is plague, smallpox, and enteric fever. In Hong 
Kong it is a fight day by day to keep the Chinese 
houses in any thing like a sanitary condition. 
Chinese who have lived a dozen years under 
British laws, and Chinese who were born under 
them, and have seen each recurring scourge of 
the plague, and are fully aware that it breeds in 
filth, yet practice every deception to relieve them- 
selves of the " house-to-house " brigade. They 
know that the plague seldom attacks Europeans, 
and never invades the clean European residential 
districts. They know the efficacy of chloride of 
lime, of whitewash, and of pure water, and still 
every day the English Magistrate's Court is 
crowded with Chinese who have been trying to 



16 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

evade the simple sanitary laws of the colony. If 
a Chinaman is taken with the plague the fact is 
concealed from the authorities, and the sick man 
is smuggled on a Canton boat, and conveyed to 
his native village, where, to his great satisfac- 
tion, he is pei:mitted to die like a dog. He has 
thus saved his Hong Kong domicile from fumiga- 
tion and lime-washing, and has reduced the cost 
of his funeral expenses by taking himself to his 
family burial lot. The fact that plague germs 
are in the house, and that the lack of fumigation 
may cause the death of his sorrowing wife and 
children, is neither considered by the living nor 
the dead, as it conflicts with their system of 
economy. 

Comparisons are odious surely as between the 
Chinese and any other nation. It is the old 
proposition of " teaching your grandmother to 
suck eggs." The Chinese have no idea of our 
standard of comfort. We wear a hat in all sea- 
sons of the year. They ask why we should wear 
a hat any more in summer than heavy gloves. 
If the sun is too hot and you are delicate, there 
is always the umbrella ; if it is too cold, there is 
always the hood. Ah Choy, the consular shroff, 
goes down to the Chinese gold-shop to change 
our gold coin into silver, in the heat of the day. 



AH CHOW THE CONSERVATIVE. 17 

The thermometer registers 100°. I do not believe 
he feels it, but if the sun gets in his old eyes he 
holds up his fan. His poll is cleanly shaven 
every morning, so there is no hair to protect his 
shining skull. At first I never expected to see 
him return alive from one of these expeditions. 
I wear a cork helmet and an umbrella, but since, 
I have discovered that the only time he ever pro- 
tects his head is when it rains. He may wear a 
rimless cap in the office or house to do some one 
honor, but never in the street. After thirty-five 
years' association with the Europeans of Hong 
Kong, Ah Choy still wears cotton clothes, sleeps 
on a wooden pillow, eats with chop-sticks, uses 
paper-soled shoes, and continues to be just as 
uncomfortable as any native of the Sun On dis- 
trict who has never been in an English colony, 
or an American consulate. It is this absolute 
absence of any standard of comparison between 
the Chinese and the American that makes it im- 
possible to hold him up to scorn. When the 
child starts in life wearing a pair of bifurcated 
bags filled with sand in the place of diapers, one 
cannot but despair of ever teaching the parents 
that " cleanliness is next to godhness " in their 
homes, even if you could dismiss for the time 
their inherent ideas of economy. In discussing 



18 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the economies of the Chinese, there is no place 
where you can stop. After eleven years of ex- 
perience I am amazed every day at some new 
example. Nothing is lost. Every animal is eaten, 
regardless of the cause of his demise. The sar- 
dine and fruit cans that we extravagantly throw 
into the dump are born again as tin cups and 
cooking utensils. The weed that cannot be eaten 
is used as fuel to cook the weed that may be 
edible. In the autumn the leaves of trees are 
gathered by children who are too young to labor, 
and pounded into bricks, and dried for their winter 
fuel. Even the exploded firecrackers that are 
used at Chinese New Year and on religious festi- 
vals are collected for the same purpose. If they 
burn any oil at night, it is simply a taper sus- 
pended in a tumbler of peanut-oil and water. 

It may be put down as an axiom that there are 
no idle people in China. A visitor in Canton or 
Peking may be struck with many cases of coolies 
or shopkeepers sleeping in the street or in their 
stalls regardless of the deafening babble that sur- 
rounds them. It is not idleness, however ; it is a 
habit, that is responsible for much of the endur- 
ance of the people. 

A coolie is sent with a load of soy or fish 
from one part of the city to another. He may 



CHINESE WITHOUT '' NERVES r 19 

have been twelve hours struggling under its ex- 
cessive load through the congested alleys. When 
he arrives at his destination, and his burden has 
to be weighed, measured, and fought over, and 
haggled for, all of which is no business of his, 
he squats in an unoccupied space, and goes im- 
mediately to sleep. It may be for ten minutes, 
or it may be for an hour. There is very little 
difference between day and night in Canton. 
The deep hum of its million workers never ceases. 
The Chinese sleep when they have nothing else to 
do ; and they sleep the sleep of the just where a 
well-bred European dog would not be able to get 
a *' cat-nap." They can sleep or work in any 
position, and keep it up for hours at a time. A 
nervous Chinaman I have never seen, and an ex- 
hibition of *' nerves " among either gender is 
unknown. He is never known to take exercise 
for the sake of exercise. My shroff, or cashier, 
Ah Choy, has been sitting, bent over a little desk, 
for thirty years, making out consular invoices. 
He handles columns of figures, running up into 
the millions, on his abacus, making the most deli- 
cate calculations, while a jabbering, pushing, spit- 
ting mob of coolie runners from the big hongs 
crowd his elbows. He works calmly on, day after 
day, in the same cramped position, on the same 



20 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

uncomfortable bamboo stool, utterly unconscious 
of his surroundings, never losing his temper, and 
seldom making a mistake. I know he never took 
a walk for any purpose other than to save chair- 
hire, and yet in the four years of my term of 
office he has never been away from the consulate 
for a day on acount of sickness. Shortly after I 
arrived a wave of pity went over me for Ah Choy ; 
and I spoke to his superior, the interpreter, about 
his cramped position and long hours of service ; 
suggested that the Government could afford a 
respectable office-chair and that the consulate 
closed officially at five o'clock, p.m. I even inti- 
mated that Ah Choy had better take the balance 
of the day for exercise and rest. Interpreter 
Chinn smiled, and promised to speak to Ah Choy. 
Choy thanked me, but put it all down as an idio- 
sincrasy of his new chief. This ended my mis- 
sionary labors in my own office. Why should he 
walk when the Government paid for two coolies 
to do his walking for him ? Why should he take 
a stated hour to rest when he could sleep at odd 
minutes with his head cramped down sidewise 
across a pile of invoices in a position that would 
strangle a man with " nerves." It is the absence 
of nerves that enables the Chinese to endure pain 
as well as toil. Every missionary doctor or hos- 



REASON OF TORTURES. 21 

pital surgeon who has worked araong the Chinese 
relates incidents of operations that have been per- 
formed without the use of chloroform that are 
hardly conceivable. Yet in almost every case the 
Chinaman seemed to experience little pain, and to 
recover almost immediately. No nation in the 
world has invented such tortures as the Chinese. 
Simple punishment, such as confinement with hard 
labor diversified with twenty strokes of the bam- 
boo before each meal, would be considered a kind- 
ness by the coolies so long as the " chow " or food 
was equal to the poorest of our prison fares. This 
absence of nerves and ability to suffer is a God- 
given gift, and makes the Chinese equal to an 
existence that would blot out the European civili- 
zation in two generations. One cannot but won- 
der if, in the struggle for the possession of the 
earth that is now taking place, the white man 
of " nerves "may not in the end go down before 
the yellow man without " nerves." 

If to the American the thought that there is no 
pubKc spirit, no love of country, no patriotism, 
among the Chinese is abhorrent, what must the 
Chinaman, the follower of Confucius, feel when 
he is told that there is no such thing as filial piety, 
as defined by his classics, in America ? It is little 
wonder we are looked upon as " Barbarians " when 



22 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

the Chinese are told that, when our sons grow up, 
they leave the roof-tree, go out into the world, 
marry, have families without consulting any one, 
go to distant countries without the parents' con- 
sent, are not responsible for their father's debts or 
deeds ; their wives do not become the servants 
of their husband's mother ; that there is no three- 
year term of mourning, etc. ; for any one in China 
can tell you that, " of the hundred virtues, filial 
conduct is the chief ; that a defect of any virtue 
when traced to its root is a lack of filial piety." 
Broadly speaking, filial piety takes the place of 
patriotism. The worship of ancestors calls upon 
the descendants to protect, worship, and visit the 
tombs of the ancestors. It requires that the par- 
ents should be served while they live, and be wor- 
shiped when dead. It makes sacred any soil in 
which the dead rests. One of the most dangerous 
mobs that ever occurred in Singapore, while I was 
there, was caused by the British authorities legis- 
lating to remove a Chinese burial-ground for mu- 
nicipal purposes. The government was to do it 
at its own expense ; but this did not meet the ob- 
jection, for no one in Singapore knew who lay in 
hundreds of the graves. A son, however, in Aus- 
tralia, Borneo, or America knew; and w^hen he 
returned in one year or three to worship at the 



FILIAL PIETT. 23 

tomb of his father, or possibly to convey the ashes 
to his ancestral temple in Honam, how was he to 
identify his dead among the hundreds that were 
removed ? His " face " would be lost, his luck 
gone, his ancestors angry. A wealthy Chinese 
merchant from Chicago, who spoke English and 
had lived since 1882 in the United States, came 
into my office one morning to see if I could aid 
him to get his father out of prison in Wuchow. 
After a long conversation I discovered that some 
returning Chinaman from Chicago had boasted to 
the Wuchow mandarin of the wealth of his old 
schoolfellow in Chicago. The mandarin was evi- 
dently envious ; so, when one of the numerous 
clan fights occurred in which several onlookers 
were killed, he ordered that the father and brother 
of the Chicago Chinaman should be imprisoned for 
complicity in the murder. They were, however, 
notified that on the payment of one thousand taels 
they would be released. My informer had imme- 
diately sent the money from Chicago, but it had 
had no other effect than a summons from the 
mandarin to appear before him to answer the 
charge of having incited the murder. He dared 
neither refuse the summons nor appear in the man- 
darin's Yamen. In the first instance all his family 
would be executed, and he would not be permitted 



24 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

to worship, or to have his body deposited in the 
ancestral temple ; and in the second instance he 
was perfectly sure he would never be allowed to 
leave the Yamen until he had been " squeezed " 
of every cash, and then the chances were that his 
sacrifices would avail him little. This case is but 
a sample one of dozens that have come under my 
observation, and is a fair example of the tremen- 
dous hold that Chinese officialdom has upon the 
people through this mistaken idea of filial piety. 
For three thousand years of Chinese history offi- 
cials were supposed to be promoted in government 
service for their filial piety and the purity of their 
characters. Mencius ruled that " There are three 
things which are unfilial, and to have no posterity 
is the greatest of them." Hence the custom of 
child marriages comes naturally, and is followed 
by the custom of divorce and concubinage when a 
wife fails to present her husband with a son. A 
discharged sailor of Dewey's flagship was married 
in my presence to a comely Chinese girl. He left 
her a few months later, and the young wife came 
to me with her sad tale. She kept mentioning 
her children, and asking how she was to provide 
for them, as they were large enough to go to 
school. At last it occurred to me that it was 
strange that she should be the mother of full- 



THE WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS, 25 

grown children, and I asked her if she had been 
married before. She replied quite unconcernedly 
in the negative. In my position of father confessor 
I inquired " How you catchy children?" She an- 
swered, " My buy two piecy boy long time." It 
seemed that the girl had not married until she 
was twenty years of age. Having practically 
given up all hope of marriage, she had bought two 
baby boys and adopted them, as she naively ex- 
plained : " No got son, how can get chow when 
my get old." The boys were her insurance policy 
for this life and her hold on the next, for she was 
preserving tlie line of her ancestors. She, like 
thousands of others, had no particular means with 
which to provide for the babies when she adopted 
them, and now she had still less; yet some how she 
would struggle along until her boys are grown, 
and then the heaviest yoke in China would fall on 
their shoulders, and they would have to take up 
the burden of filial piety in all its ramifications. 
The worship of ancestors is the true religion of 
China, and is to a greater extent responsible for 
the uninterrupted progress of China's national 
life than any other one thing. It chains the gene- 
rations of to-day to the generations of the Shun 
dynasty. It creates a fatherland of tombs that 
never releases its sons, and calls them from New 



26 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

York, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, and from my servants' 
quarters in Hong Kong, to render the same obei- 
sance to the shade of the dead as the worshiper 
expects from his son when his bones rest in the 
ancestral temple. 

The famous general, Chau Pau, was sent by 
the Emperor Ling Ti, in A. d. 177, to reduce the 
fierce Sienpi. On the march his mother was 
seized ; and when the two armies confronted each 
other, the Sienpi placed the old lady in the front 
rank, and threatened to murder her unless the son 
submitted. Chau Pau had to chose between his 
emperor and country and his mother. His loyalty 
to the emperor prevailed, and his mother was bar- 
barously murdered before his very eyes. Chau 
Pau won the battle that followed, but he had lost 
all hope of happiness in the next world. He died 
shortly afterwards of grief and horror at his posi- 
tion, saying " If I had betrayed my country, I 
should have been disloyal. I have been the cause, 
however, of my mother's death, and so I have 
been unfilial. I bartered my soul for the applause 
of my king." Nearly seven hundred years later, 
during the Tang dynasty, a man was tried for the 
murder of a man who had killed his father. The 
judge decided : " If we put him to death, there is 
the danger that we shall do a grievous injury to the 



CONSERVATISM INGRAINED. 27 

filial sentiment in men, and deter them from doing 
any thing to avenge the wrongs done to their 
parents. On the other hand, if he is not punished, 
we shall encourage violent acts in the community, 
and men will be taking the law into their own 
hands, and filling society with bloodshed." The 
case was compromised by the filial murderer's 
banishment, and thus the teachings of the Con- 
fucian classics were reconciled to the laws of the 
land. 

The Chinese may be styled a religious people. 
In a large way they recognize a supreme being ; 
but, as has been said, ancestral worship has blotted 
out the face of God, and made gods of dead rela- 
tives. 

We use the term conservative and conservatism 
in America, but until you live in China they have 
no real significance. Chinese conservatism means 
that everything is done by rule, and in most in- 
stances the rule is from two thousand to six thou- 
sand years old ; hence it is hallowed by age and 
association. You will not be long in China before 
you discover that your ways and the ways of 
China do not run along parallel lines. On the 
first day of November all your servants go from 
white into blue clothes. Ask the reason, and you 
are informed that cold weather has come, although 



28 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the thermometer may stand 85° in the shade, or it 
may be that it has been cold enough for grate-fires 
for ten days. On the first of May the blue is dis- 
carded for white, and hot weather has arrived in 
spite of your own winter clothes. The head of 
the house offered our laundryman fifty cents a 
month extra if he would sprinkle her clothes with 
his hands instead of with his mouth. He ac- 
cepted the fifty cents gladly, but continued his 
good old ways. An offer of one dollar a month 
had no better effect. Since the Spanish- American 
War American mercantile firms have sent out 
their agents to try and capture a portion of the 
presumably large trade of China. The Chinese 
merchants received them politely, and gave them 
permission to consign any and all goods they 
wished to on commission. It made no difference 
whether the goods were steam-engines or curling- 
irons ; they would be received if the freight were 
prepaid, but as for actually buying the things, or 
helping to introduce any new American product 
or invention, that was not to be thought of. It 
was not long before the ambitious American 
exporter discovered that he must either open 
his own agency, or give up all hopes of entering 
the field. Chinese conservatism they found was 
an unsurmountable barrier. The literary man 



CONSERVATISM IN LITERATURE, 29 

ranks all other professions in China ; but, unlike 
our literary men, he is very seldom a producer of 
original literature. He is merely a student of the 
classics. Conservatism in literature is even more 
pronounced than in trade. The writings of Con- 
fucius and Mencius, commentaries on them, the 
book of historical documents, the " Shoo King," or 
" Book of History," are the same to-day as they 
were five hundred years before Christ, when Con- 
fucius made them to please his own fancy. They 
comprise the curriculum of the universities, and 
the winner of the Bachelor of Arts Degree at the 
time of Christ would still be able to earn his 
degree at the triennial examinations at Canton or 
Peking to-day. Yet one has no right to laugh at 
a conservatism in literature that has moulded a 
race and built up a system of government that 
has lived to see the civihzation of Egypt, Greece, 
and Rome decay. You never hear of a "lost 
art " in China. It took a complete overturning of 
China, and changed the dynasty, to introduce the 
queue, and it will take a revolution and a change 
of dynasty to abolish it. The American firm that 
wrote me they were sending out a representa- 
tive " to introduce their superior table cutlery " 
did not realize that their representative should be 
accompanied by a line of battle-ships and an army 



30 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

of invasion. When the knife and fork supplant 
the chopsticks, a new dynasty will sit on the 
dragon throne, and China will have entered upon 
a new chapter of its history. Mahomet might 
have made Mahommedanism the state religion of 
China with the aid of the cimeter, but once es- 
tablished it would require the modern missionary 
with a maxim gun to displace it. Christ has 
commanded that we shall go forth to preach his 
gospel to all the world. The Christian mission- 
ary in China has to fight ^vith Chinese conserva- 
tism rather than Chinese infidelism or paganism. 
Buddhism came to China by royal invitation, and 
soon made a place for itself by the side of Taoism; 
and the two religions ran along side by side 
on the most friendly terms. The Chinaman is 
entirely impartial in his choice of religions. If 
his prayers are not answered in the Buddhist 
temple he will simply step across the street and 
burn twice as many joss-sticks and paper prayers 
in a taoist. With all their superstition, their run- 
ning after strange gods and ancestral worsliip, the 
Chinese believe in a Supreme Being, and their 
history from mythical and legendary periods is 
filled with noble examples of self-sacrifice and 
religious fervor, many of which parallel the acts 
of the Old Testament kings. Tang, who ruled 



EXAMPLES OF SELF-SACRIFICE, 31 

1776 years B.C., delivered his nation from a most 
grievous drought by offering himself as a sacrifice 
to the Supreme Being if his people might be 
saved. After praying all night in a mulberry 
grove his faith was rewarded, and a copious rain 
fell for hundreds of miles over the dying country. 
In memory of God's goodness he composed, like 
the old Israelite kings, an ode of thanksgiving, 
which is known as " The Great Salvation." The 
Emperor Kung (b. c. 1401-1373) removed his 
entire capital from Kingtai in Chihli to Yin, 
a town north of the Yellow River in Honam, 
because the country was not prospering, and 
righteousness was declining, and he Avished to 
commence over again, and seek purity on virgin 
soil. Wu Yih, the emperor who first introduced 
idols as well as the worship of mountains and 
streams, was struck dead by a shaft of Hghtning 
while hunting ; and all historians agree that it was 
a just punishment by Heaven. The introduction 
of western medicine, in spite of its ability to 
recommend itself by cures which to the Chinese 
looked like miracles, finds itself defeated by 
this selfsame hide-bound conservatism. In Hong 
Kong the enlightened Chinese merchants have 
established a hospital in which the patients can 
choose between Chinese and Western science, and 



32 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

be treated by either free of expense. Yet not five 
per cent of the inmates will permit an English 
doctor to treat them, even after the Chinese doctor 
has given them up. Sir Henry Blake, the gov- 
ernor of this colony, said in November, 1899, at 
the laying of the foundation stone of the woman's 
ward : " The record of the Tung Wah Hospital 
shows that the proportion of cures effected by 
western methods over Chinese is fifty per cent." 

My "Number One Boy" was looking very sad 
one morning as he served our breakfast. The 
mistress asked him if he were sick. "No," he 
replied in Pidgin English, " my wife he die two 
hours." By further questioning, we found that 
the Chinese doctor had given his wife up, and 
that he was expecting every moment to be notified 
of her death. The consular surgeon went imme- 
diately to the bedside of the dying woman, and 
found that she was suffering from a simple stric- 
ture of the bladder, and that the Chinese M.D. 
had been dosing her with Ginsing tea and other 
nostrums that were only hastening the end. An 
ordinary surgical operation relieved her, and in a 
few days she was as well as ever. We congratu- 
lated ourselves that we had at last made one con- 
vert to Western science, as the " boy " was most 
grateful and complimentary. A few months later 



NEVER CHANGING FASHIONS, 33 

the same boy announced that his baby, a dear 
little tot, was about to die, and that the Chinese 
doctor had given it up. We were disgusted, and 
told the boy what we thought, — among other 
things, declaring that he was little better than a 
murderer. The child was not too far gone to be 
saved by earthly aid, and the education of science 
triumphed again. 

The fashion in mandarin's clothes and insignia 
was introduced by Topa in a.d. 404, and the 
fashion has never changed. King Topa might 
imagine himself in his own court should he return 
to-day. The civil mandarin of the first rank is 
known now, as then, by the square embroidered 
patch on the back and front of his robe, bearing 
the cunningly worked figure of a Manchurian 
crane, and by the red coral knob on the top of his 
cap; the military mandarin by the unicorn and 
coral knob, and so on down to the tenth or lowest 
mandarin rank. The fashion in the clothes of 
the now dominant Anglo-Saxon race has somewhat 
modified since 404, as has its religion and its social 
ceremonial ! 

An American going to France studies and 
strives to master French rules of ceremony and 
politeness. He may not approve of or see the 
sense in all that is required of him ; but when he 



34 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

is amoJi.g Romans, if he has common sense, he 
strives to do as the Romans do. A foreigner, 
however, never takes the trouble to acquaint him- 
self with Chinese social procedure. It is not 
necessary or possible to know the three hundred 
rules of ceremony or the three thousand rules of 
behavior that are laid down in the classics ; but 
a few general principles would save us from much 
of the scorn that is attached to the term " bar- 
barian," and go far toward lubricating the hinges of 
the " open door." The punctilio of the Spaniard 
is yet in its childhood as compared to the code of 
hoary China. Every act of daily life is governed 
by well-established forms. I fear that there is little 
sincerity or heart in many of them; but at the 
same time, when the Spaniard tells you that his 
house, and all that it contains, is yours, it never 
occurs to you to actually dispossess him. A 
Chinese merchant comes to the consulate to ask 
for information, and brings you a box of cigars 
as a present or as an acknowledgment of the 
trouble he has placed you to. The cigars are 
Manilas, of the cheapest quality. He is per- 
fectly aware that you will never smoke one of 
them ; he would not himself ; but he expects you 
to accept them. You had no right to expect 
anything, as what you did was part of your day's 



DEFECT OF CHINESE CHARACTER. 35 

work; but he has done the polite thing, and re- 
lieved himself of all obligations to you. At a 
wedding the friends of the groom will send bas- 
kets of impossible cakes or the smallest dried 
ducks, or half of a pig that has died of disease. 
The recipient is bound by all the ceremonials of 
polite behavior to accept them and look grateful, 
but both parties know that the gifts will be thrown 
to the beggars as soon as the groom has taken 
the bride to his home. When calling upon a 
Chinese mandarin, it is your fault if you do not 
know that it is time to go when the tea is handed 
round. If you are not aware that it is a mark of 
disrespect for your servants to come into your 
presence with their queues twisted about their 
heads, so much the worse for you. 

A Chinaman is intensely curious, but at the 
same time he " minds his own business." In Amer- 
ica, minding one's business is considered a virtue ; 
but in China it is one of the defects of the 
Chinese character, personal and national. The 
Chinaman is absolutely lacking in sympathy, 
charity, and is utterly indifferent as to the fate 
of his neighbor, the neighboring city, or any- 
thing in the body politic that does not actually 
touch him. The history of China is filled with 
examples of disasters, brought on by this un- 



36 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

sympathetic system of minding one's own busi- 
ness. It has made every rebellion possible, and 
been a great factor in the overthrow of dynasties. 
It encourages piracy, and protects dishonest offi- 
cials. What is somebody's business is nobody's. 
A general raises the standard of revolt and cap- 
tures a city. A city ten miles removed looks on 
with absolute indifference to the horrors of the oc- 
cupation, knowing full well that its turn will come 
next, and also that if the two cities had united 
their forces they could have put down the rebels. 
With his reenforcements the victor moves on the 
next city in his way, and so on until he is master 
of an entire province. The adjoining province 
minds its own business ; and when the rebel has 
perfected all his plans, he marches into it, and re- 
duces it city by city. It is not until his power 
has become formidable that the throne deigns to 
notice him ; and then, if he cannot be bought off 
with a dukedom or secretly assassinated, a battle 
is fought that generally decides in one day the 
fate of the dynasty. The Taiping rebellion could 
have been crushed in its infancy, had it been 
any one's business to have done so. When the 
Chinese fleet surrendered to the Japanese after 
the battle of Yalu, one of the Chinese men-of- 
war asked to be exempted from the surrender as 



''MINDING ONES BUS IN ESS r 37 

it belonged to the Southern division, and was in 
the fight by mistake, which was literally none of 
its business. A Chinaman snatched the watch of 
a Portuguese in Glenealy Road, two minutes' walk 
from the consular building. There were dozens 
of coolies passing at the time ; but no one inter- 
fered, and the thief paid no more attention to 
them than if they were wooden images. The 
victim heard one of the onlookers remark as he 
was passing, " That was a Bold thing to do ! " In 
crossing the Johore Straits I saw a sampan upset, 
and the occupant, who could not swim, slowly 
drown in the presence of a half-dozen passing 
sampans. Of course there are always other rea- 
sons than that of " minding one's business." 
Chinese reasons are many, and not always clear 
to the Occidental. The rescuer might have been 
interfering with fate, or the man might have 
wanted to die, and the rescuer would have become 
responsible for his support during the rest of his 
natural life. 

The struggle for existence is too intense, too 
real, for one man to devote any time or sympathy 
to the business or sorrows of another. From the 
throne to the hovel it is always a question of the 
survival of the fittest. The weak perish, and do 
so resignedly. It is fate. Outside of the imperial 



38 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

circle, there is no such thing as politics in the 
empire. The voice of the people is nothing, 
simply because the people will not raise their 
voice. They are in a sense as cruel to themselves 
as they are to one another. The triennial exam- 
inations at Canton are public exhibitions of the en- 
durance, conservatism, and cruelty of the Chinese 
to themselves. Boys twenty years of age and old 
men of ninety are huddled together in a thousand 
stone cells or stalls not fit for a cow, eating, sleep- 
ing, or working on cold or hot, wet or burning 
stones as the case may be, cramped and uncom- 
fortable, taxing their mental and physical endu- 
rance to the breaking limit ; coming out haggard, 
disheveled, many prostrated, and some as corpses, 
a pitiful expose of the lack of human kindness 
in their characters. The " prize-man " may later 
become viceroy of Canton, but he does nothing to 
better the condition of the examination hall. He 
suffered, let others do the same. This cruel in- 
difference on the other hand has been of the 
greatest protection to travelers and missionaries 
in China. As a general proposition, the mission- 
aries have been left too much to themselves by 
the surrounding population to make success in 
their profession possible. Missionaries have been 
massacred and missions burned, but nine times 



LACK OF SYMPATHY, 39 

out of ten it has been on account of some form 
of insane fear rather than from pure cruelty. 
The Chinese have been told that missionaries eat 
children or dissect them, or that their presence is 
responsible for a flood, a famine, or a plague. In 
California I have seen all the Chinese driven out 
of a town by a civilized mob, because they worked 
cheaper and lived cheaper than the members of 
the mob. White men are never stoned or de- 
ported in China for commercial reasons. Last 
year the viceroy of the Two Kwangs forbade the 
importation of kerosene-oil in the West River 
district, and for a time killed the industry. The 
crops failed that year, and the farmers believed 
that the soil had been poisoned by the spilling of 
the new barbarian oil on the ground. The entire 
population went back to the use of peanut-oil ; 
but they soon realized the difference by compari- 
son, and now kerosene-oil has obtained a foot> 
hold from which it can never be dislodged. 

The Chinese have a remarkable sense of humor, 
even if it takes a cruel form. Ask a Chinaman 
the best of two roads to a town and he will 
invariably recommend the worst and longest, and 
consider it a good joke. A workman falls from 
a bamboo scaffold and breaks his leg. Immedi- 
ately every other workman will stop and laugh, 



40 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

as though it were the best joke of the season. 
Lieutenant Kirkpatrick Brice, who was of Gen- 
eral Parsons's party in surveying the line of the 
Canton-Hankow Railway, told me that when they 
stopped at a village at night the natives gath- 
ered round by the hundred interfering with their 
work and movements ; they soon found that it 
was dangerous to try to drive them back, but, 
instead, one of their party would suddenly seize 
upon one of the villagers, and pitch him into 
a mud-hole or a stream. This would cause a 
tremendous laugh, and afterwards every one w^as 
good-natured. A deformed Chinaman is the sub- 
ject of endless jokes and ceaseless mirth. The 
colliding of two Chinese rickshaws is a standing 
joke in the Treaty Ports ; while a hawker being 
led to jail by his queue becomes a target for all 
the wits along the entire route. The lamenta- 
tions of Jeremiah would have been impossible in 
China. They would have been preserved as an 
example, by some humorous Confucius, of his 
nation's superior method of ridiculing someone 
else's misery. 

To one who has lived in China for ten years 
or more there is practically no limit to an article 
dealing with the character of the Chinese. One 
thought suggests another until the entire book is 



CHINESE PECULIARITIES. il 

too short to chronicle what one sees around him 
from day to day. Whoever attempts to write 
a chapter on Chinese peculiarities can feel per- 
fectly certain that it will be skipped by the 
old residents of China, with the comment that it 
is superficial ; and the writer's only hope is that 
this brief essay will, in some measure, form as an 
introduction of China to a nation that is rapidly 
becoming one of the great factors in international 
diplomacy. 



42 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 



III. 

FROM FUH-HI TO CONFUCIUS. 

[2852 B.C. TO 478 B.C.] 

THERE is an indefiniteness regarding the 
first thousand years of Chinese history 
that 1 fear has proven a temptation 
that most tellers of China's story could not resist. 
Even the exemplary Confucius was unable to 
withstand the opportunity to create out of this 
legendary period a few chapters from which he 
could point a moral and adorn a tale. The 
Chinese historical writers knew the full value of 
having their "novel" open so as to catch the 
public attention. The emperors, Yau and Shun, 
who reigned from B.C. 2356-2205 are as familiar 
personages in the daily conversation of every 
Chinese school-boy as are Washington and Lincoln 
in that of the Americans. Their deeds and lives 
stand out as shining examples to emperors and 
peasants. They were blessed with every virtue, 
and were credited with the highest administrative 
abilities. They " never told a lie," and as far as 



THE FOUNDERS OF CHINA, 43 

we know they never made a mistake. They may 
be considered historically the founders of the 
Empire of China, as they are so accepted by 
Chinese historians. Yet outside of the mere fact 
that these two worthies actually lived and ruled 
wisely, they are both the clever creations of Con- 
fucius and his distinguished disciple Mencius. 
Confucius was a worshiper of ancestors ; and as 
long as he had the opportunity of fitting out his 
nation with ancestors, it is certainly commendable 
that he gave them such respectable ones. In 
doing so he also gave his people a " Golden Age," 
and quite properly placed it so far back that no 
one outside of China could dispute it, and no one 
in China would dare. 

Following in the footsteps of Confucius, I think 
it only fair to start the sons of Shem from the 
rich basin of the Euphrates, the mother of all 
races, and allow them to gradually work northeast 
to the richer basin of the Yellow River. Like the 
Chaldeans and the Israelites they were a pastoral 
people ; but as they found the country preempted 
by " squatters " of other races, which necessitated 
fierce wars, they were soon forced to cultivate the 
soil ; and three thousand years before Christ we 
find records of the weaving of garments from flax, 
the planting of mulberry-trees, and the establish- 



44 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

ment of fairs where the farmers could congregate 
and barter. 

The period which barbarian historians have pro- 
fanely styled the mythical commenced with the 
hewing out of the earth and the heavens by the 
hard-working, but very homely god, Pan-ku. He 
is the hero of the Chinese cosmogony; and his 
statue, which is to be found in every Chinese 
home, represents him with an ax in one hand and 
a chisel in the other striking at the dome above. 
Three dynasties followed, each reigning for eighteen 
thousand years, and each of these labored to de- 
velop Pan-ku's masterpiece and make it habitable. 

Contemporaneous history of China commences 
with the reign of Fuh-hi, 2852 B.C. Thereafter 
the kings were men, and the mythical developed 
into the legendary. The fables of this early period 
are not as cleverly pictured as those of corre- 
sponding periods in Egyptian, Greek, or Eoman 
history, but they are characteristically as interest- 
ing, and in many particulars strangely similar. 
Fuh-hi instituted the laws of marriage, taught men 
how to fish with nets and to rear domestic animals. 
He invented the lute and the lyre that his people 
might be charmed with music, and so enabled them 
to bear more cheerfully the burdens of life. He 
established family names, and devised the system of 



THE GREAT TU. 45 

writing by Chinese characters. His modesty for- 
bade him to claim any credit for these beneficial 
inventions, and he gave full glory for them to a 
dragon-horse that came from out the Yellow River 
bearing a scroll on its back. Hence to this day 
the imperial insignia is the dragon, and the im- 
perial throne is known as the " dragon throne." 

It is pleasant to hnger over the records of the 
kings that succeeded Fuh-hi, as the good they did 
has lived after them, and the evil has been buried 
in their tombs. They worked singly for the up- 
building of their people, and whatever evil acts are 
recorded of them serve only the more vividly to 
bring out the disinterestedness of their lives. Dur- 
ing the reign of the Great Yu (b.c. 2205-2197) 
occurred the tremendous overflow of China's sor- 
row, the Yellow River, of which Yu recorded "how 
destructive are the waters of the inundation. They 
envelop the mountains, and rise higher than the 
hills, and they threaten the very heavens, so the 
people complain." This is a description which 
the vast stream has lived up to ever since. The 
discovery of the manufacture of wines caused this 
old sage to remark after he recovered from the 
effects of his first spree : " The days will come 
when some of my successors through drinking this 
will cause infinite sorrow to the nation." Where- 



46 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

upon he promptly banished the unfortunate discov- 
erer from the country as a dangerous character. 

Whether it was the too frequent use of this new- 
found drink, or simply despair of ever being able 
to Hve up to the high standard set by Yu, it is 
sufficient to know that his sixteen successors 
degenerated with mathematical precision. Had 
the succession to the throne remained as before the 
death of Yu, a reward to the most distinguished 
and best quahfied man, without regard to rank or 
family, it is possible that the dynasty of Hsai 
would still be on the dragon throne. As Yau 
chose Shun, one of the people, to succeed him, so 
Yu desired that his place be taken by Yih, a man 
of vast ability and probity ; but the feudal princes 
voted to place Ki, the son of Yu, on the throne, 
and the hereditary principle was established. 

In spite of the cruelty and debauchery of Yu's 
successors the people did not rebel. It remained, 
however, for a woman, Meihi, wife of the Emperor 
Kwei (B.C. 1818-1766), to pile on the straw that 
broke the camel's back. Meihi, the peerless, was 
the daughter of the chief of Shih. Her beauty was 
of the queenly type that conquered men's minds 
and their passions also. She seldom smiled, but 
when she did it was with a purpose ; and no man 
could stand before the longing that possessed 



MEIHI, THE PEERLESS. 47 

him. The soldier was ready to die to win one 
more smile, one more glance, from the veiled eyes. 
The student forgot his books, and considered them 
worthless, as they revealed no; icharm whereby he 
might win one sign from the parted lips. Yet 
morally Meihi was more base than Cleopatra. 
She loved no man ; she used all ; and she wrecked 
a dynasty. 

The emperor was her slave. He built her a 
palace of jade, onyx, and gold, surrounded it with 
splendid gardens, filled with every costly flower 
and shrub and rare animal that his empire con- 
tained. There were grottos and dells, artificial 
lakes and waterfalls, baths of scented waters, 
bits of wild forest in which spotted deer roamed 
and birds from all climes sung. The orgies 
of this fairy-land filled the nation with dis- 
gust. At night the trees would be lighted, a 
lake filled with wine, shrubbery hung with confec- 
tions, and thousands of naked, dissolute men and 
women would sport about the grounds, dance to 
the lyre and the lute, or rush into the lake of 
wine, and drink until drunk or drowned. Because 
the prince of Shang remonstrated, the emperor 
built an underground palace, where for a month 
at a time his dissolute court would disappear, and 
indulge in the wildest debauchery. Finding words 



48 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

and warnings vain, Tang, the prince of Shang, re- 
sorted to sterner methods, and placed the crown 
on his own brow, thereby founding the Shang 
dynasty, which ruled for over six hundred years 
(B.C. 1766-1122), and which, curiously enough, 
was wrecked by a woman under almost similar 
circumstances to those just narrated. 

The virtuous Tang was succeeded by twenty- 
eight emperors, who, with two exceptions, tried to 
excel each other in cruelty and wickedness. One 
of them, Wu Yih, has the distinction of introdu- 
cing idols (B.C. 1199-1194) into China. He did 
this to show his utter unbelief in God and all 
religion. Then, to show his contempt for these 
figures of wood and clay, he ordered the bonzes 
to fight with them to prove that the gods whose 
counterfeit presentment they were could not pro- 
tect themselves. 

The Nemesis of the Shang dynasty was Taki, 
the companion of the last emperor. Chow Sin, and 
the most beautiful woman in Chinese history 
since Meihi. If the historical accounts are true, 
Takai exceeded Meihi both in beauty and general 
wickedness. She was more than licentious, — she 
was cruel for the pleasure it gave her. She was 
Cleopatra, Lucretia Borgia, and Catharine in one. 
Her beauty was so great that when it was ordered 



TAKI AND THE STAG TOWER, 49 

that she should pay the penalty of her sins, no 
one could be found who could stand up before her 
eyes and carry out the sentence. The victorious 
General Fa sent soldier after soldier to her prison ; 
but each returned, declaring that he could not raise 
his hand to disfigure such divine beauty. Fa was 
afraid to trust himself, and at length dispatched 
an aged councilor, who covered his own face, and 
dealt the fatal blow. The popular belief through- 
out China to-day is, that she was a human incar- 
nation of a wolf-demon. Many of the licentious 
songs of the Chinese are reputed to have been 
composed for Taki. The emperor built for her 
the famous " Stag Tower," which afterwards be- 
came his funeral pyre. It took seven years to 
erect the Stag Tower, which was more than a 
mile square, and was surrounded by a vast park. 
He built other palaces, that taxed the empire 
to the very limit, and in the building of which 
thousands of lives were sacrificed through over- 
work and privation. Watching the workmen in 
one of the parks, the empress noticed that in 
fording an artificial stream of cold spring water 
the young men seemed to feel the cold more 
than the old. Taki argued that the reason for 
this was that the young men had more marrow in 
their bones. The emperor was not convinced ; and 



50 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

to satisfy himself he ordered his guards to seize a 
number of both young and old and break their 
legs so that his doubts might be at rest. All the 
orgies of Meihi were imitated and exaggerated by 
this precious couple. 

The punishment for such crimes and abuse of 
power was not only death, but the loss of throne ; 
and as the end of every Chinese dynasty has been 
brought about through the cruelty or weakness of 
its representatives, so the inauguration of each 
new dynasty has for a time meant reforms and 
good times. The founder of the Chow dynast}^ 
(b. c. 1122-255) ranks with the great founders 
of the Hai and Shang dynasties. The Emperor 
Wu Wang, the first of the Chows, if on the 
dragon throne to-day, would settle the perplexed 
question of China's future. With a man of 
his caliber, activity, and honesty at the helm 
backed by a united empire, there would be little 
need for international interference. One of the 
sages has remarked that the king is the dish, 
and the people the water ; if the dish is round so 
will the water be. Wu Wang found the nation 
in much worse straits than Kwangsu, the present 
emperor, found it when he mounted the throne. 
The people, however, soon discovered that Wu 
Wang was honest in his reforms, and that his laws 



THE FIRST OF THE CHOWS, 51 

were for the great as well as for the small ; and 
they united to hold up his hands and second 
every act. Wu, like William the Conqueror, es- 
tablished the feudal system in China by dividing 
his kingdom among his lieutenants, and bestowing 
upon them titles of nobility. He subdivided these 
estates into allotments on which ten families 
should reside, and to meet the expenses of the 
empire put in force the tithing-system. He estab- 
lished free schools, built homes for the aged and 
infirm, and carried out reforms with a firm but just 
hand in every department of his vast empire. 
His fame spread beyond his dominions, and em- 
bassies from Korea and Cochin-China waited upon 
him, and the wild tribes of Tartary and the fron- 
tier sent him tribute. 

In sweeping the augean stables of the last of 
the Shang kings, Wu accomplished what is con- 
sidered, in the case of the present dynasty, impos- 
sible, by the concert of civilized nations. He 
proved that the dwarfed and stunted tree of 
national life could be made to blossom and bear 
good fruit if intelligently and patiently watered 
and nurtured. China's history is forever repeating 
itself, and it is possible that the regeneration of the 
China of to-day will come from within rather than 
from without. Fortunately for the nation Wu 



52 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

was succeeded by an able son, who for tliirty-eight 
years worked with his famous uncle, the great 
duke of Chow, to carry on and finish the work of 
his illustrious father. Wu, however, made one 
great fatal mistake, in the establishment of the 
feudal system ; a mistake which in China, as in 
Europe, has caused more bloodshed, oppression, 
and misery, than any other one institution in the 
world's history. It created an excuse for wars that 
had not before existed, distracted and disruptured 
the empire, destroyed what little national patriotism 
there was, and quadrupled the taxation of the people. 
Emperor after emperor was forced to enter into 
treaties and compacts with his own vassals in 
order to save his throne from the grasp of some 
ambitious vassal, or he was forced to sit quietly 
by while the great dukes of Chow or Tsin or 
Sung made unrighteous wars on a weaker duke 
or princeling, or hj force major absorbed his terri- 
tory and confiscated his revenues. From time to 
time there would be a strong emperor like Chau 
Sing who would reduce the factious and rebellious 
princes to a state of masked submission, but it 
was a fight, veiled or otherwise, that only ended 
with the death of one or other of the contestants. 
There were centuries when the emperor of China 
was merely a man and a name, whom the powerful 



FEUDALISM IN CHINA. 63 

princes indifferently tolerated, and whose title they 
would protect or attack as it suited their interests. 
Following the reign of Mu (B.C. 1001-946), to 
whom belongs the honor of further debasing the 
morals of the people by introducing a regular scale 
of prices for crimes in the place of the penal code, 
the feudal princes, who styled themselves kings, 
became the real power, and the empire was little 
more than a confederacy of loosely bound states. 

The feudal times of Europe were reproduced in 
China ; and the great lords raised up and threw 
down emperors, took the reins of power into their 
own hands, and made the history of the epoch the 
narration of their own petty quarrels and bicker- 
ings. In China as in Europe feudalism developed 
great captains and daring robber-barons. It created 
a so-called age of chivalry, but ground down the 
common people, fostered ignorance, and hindered 
progress. One of the heroic characters of this age 
was the duke of Shau, who, when the cruelties of 
the Emperor Li caused the people to rise in rebel- 
lion and demand the life of the crown prince as 
penalty for his father's crimes, took his OAvn son 
and heir, dressed him in royal robes, and delivered 
him to the mob, who tore him to pieces believing 
him to be the heir apparent. Li employed a wizard 
to point out persons in his court and on the street 



54 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

who spoke disrespectfully of him behind his hack. 
Every denunciation meant death. The people 
were reduced to such a state of terror that they 
dared not address each other on the merest subject, 
and almost universal silence reigned at the capital. 
The emperor sneeringly remarked to the Duke of 
Shau, " I have stopped the profane talk of my 
people, and given them a lesson in good manners." 

" You have only dammed up the words in their 
hearts," he replied, " and that is a dangerous thing 
even for a king to do ; when the waters of a river 
are obstructed, they will by and by carry every 
thing before them." 

In the midst of times like those of which Men- 
cius writes, "the Royal Ordinances are violated, 
the people are oppressed, and the supplies of food 
and drink flow away like water," Confucius was 
born. His birth in the year B.C. 551, was the 
most momentous event in all Chinese history, as 
the birth of Christ was the most momentous event 
in the history of the world. I would not presume 
to compare the works and teachings of Confucius 
with those of Christ, neither can there be any just 
comparison between Confucius and Mahomet. 
Like Moses and Solon, Confucius was a lawgiver ; 
and yet he was more than a mere lawgiver; he 
was a practical philosopher of the Benjamin 



CONFUCIUS. 55 

Franklin type, a greater leader than Peter the 
Hermit, and a teacher second only to Christ. 
Beyond a few fabulous stories about his birth, 
there is nothing mythical or legendary in the life 
of Confucius. His is the one strong, masterful 
figure in Chinese history, that stands out clear-cut 
and distinct against a vast background of medi- 
ocracy and of mythical heroes. His words cannot 
be judged by our standards, — for their influence 
appears out of all proportion to our interpretation, 
— but must be respected in the light of the won- 
derful changes for the better they have wrought in 
Chinese life and character. It is almost impos- 
sible to select from the books of Confucius quota- 
tions expressing to the Chinese all that the Bible 
does to us, or that commend themselves to our minds 
as either simply instructive or deeply profound. 
Personally I prefer "Poor Richard's Almanac," 
which only proves the utter hopelessness of recon- 
ciling Chinese methods of thought to American 
standards. " Virtue," he teaches, " is the basis of 
good government." All nations admit this axiom, 
but the question has always been as to how virtue 
is to be cultivated. " Virtue," Confucius adds, 
"consists, first, in procuring for the people the 
things necessary for their sustenance . . . the 
ruler must also think of rendering them virtuous. 



56 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

and of preserving them from whatever can injure 
hfe and health." As to the duty of the people he 
says: 

" The services of love and reverence to parents 
when alive, and those of grief and sorrow for 
them when dead, these completely discharge the 
fmidamental duty of living men." He saw a 
woman weeping by the roadside, and sent a dis- 
ciple to ascertain the cause. " You weep," said 
the messenger, " as if you had experienced sorrow 
upon sorrow." " I have," said the woman. " My 
father-in-law was killed here by a tiger, and my 
husband also, and now my son has met the same 
fate." " Why, then, do you not move from this 
place ? " asked Confucius. " Because here there is 
no oppressive government," answered the woman. 
Turning to his disciples, Confucius remarked: 
" ]My children, remember this, oppressive govern- 
ment is fiercer than a tiger." A very natural 
deduction, and one that commends itself to the 
experience of every Chinaman who has been un- 
fortunate enough to get into a magistrate's yamen. 
Confucius had himself been a magistrate, and 
knew whereof he talked. As a magistrate, he re- 
formed not only the entire judiciary of his state, 
but introduced most drastic moral reforms, and 
made laws in reference to both the living and the 



REFORMER AND DIPLOMAT. 57 

dead. He arranged that the dependent aged 
should be cared for, and that all labor should be 
allotted according to the physical strength of the 
workers — the weaklings might braid mats, while 
the strong carried bricks — so all men labored 
according to their capacities and strength. He 
ordered that men and women in walking on the 
public roads should take different sides, so that 
there should be no promiscuous mingling of the 
sexes. He decreed that valuables that might 
have been dropped by the way should not be 
picked up by the passer-by, but be left to be found 
by the owner. He would not permit bad work or 
shoddy materials to be exposed for sale in the 
market, and reduced the burdensome and lavish 
expenditure at funerals. His reforms proved so 
efficacious that other magistrates imitated him, 
and after one year Confucius was promoted to 
minister of justice to the Duke Ting. Not only 
as a reformer and administrator did Confucius 
shine, but he showed the highest diplomatic abil- 
ity. He averted a war between the rival states of 
Lu and Tsi, stopped numerous internecine out- 
breaks, and made it impossible for ambitious man- 
darins to raise the standard of revolt by issuing 
an order that no yamen should contain coats of 
mail, and that the walls of numerous turbulent 



58 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

cities should be reduced in height. Later, as 
prime minister, he exercised almost royal powers, 
and made the Dukedom of Lu the model and envy 
of the entire empire. Unfortunately, Confucius 
was not a god, nor even a king ; and it was not 
long before his patron, the Duke Ting, grew tired 
of being good, and the ungrateful people became 
weary of the golden rule. The old rival state of 
Tsi decided to tempt the virtue of the model 
duke, and sent him as a present eighty beautiful 
women and one hundred and twenty blooded 
horses. Confucius vainly urged his duke to re- 
fuse the gift, and subsequently Confucius resigned 
his office, and retired from court. Thereafter he 
devoted himself to compiling, editing, and annotat- 
ing the literature of China, and of writing out at 
length his own teachings and pliilosophies. He 
died in B.C. 478, a natural death — a happiness 
that rarely came to a public man of the times. A 
cup of poison or a silk cord, with the compliments 
of the duke or king, was the usual end of nearly 
if not quite all the famous statesmen of China to 
within the last three hundred years. 

Confucius was a sensible, practical, brainy, 
hard-working statesman and scholar, — a statement 
that cannot be applied to the long line of empe- 
rors that insisted on deifying him. He did not 



CONFUCIUS, 59 

strive to build up a religion, or to pose as a god 
or the prophet of a god. Confucianism became 
one of the mighty religions of the earth through 
neither the wish nor the fault of the man from 
whom it derived its name. It became a religion 
because Confucian philosophy was so much higher, 
nobler, and purer than the teachings of Buddha 
or Laotze. The common people understood Con- 
fucius as the fishermen of Galilee understood 
Jesus, and they saw that Confucius practiced 
what he preached. It was a most natural evolu- 
tion whereby Confucius became a god and his 
written words a religion, although he himself did 
not recognize the existence of a living God, and 
his teachings contained no hint of a future life, 
either in heaven or in hell. When asked his 
opinion of death he said, " How can one know 
death when one does not know life ? " 

" The teaching of Confucianism on human duty," 
says Dr. Legge, "is wonderful and admirable." 
It is not perfect, indeed ; " but on the last three 
of the four things which Confucius delighted to 
teach — letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truth- 
fulness — his utterances are in harmony with both 
the law and the gospel." " No people," says Mr. 
Medhurst, " whether of ancient or modern times, 
has possessed a sacred literature so completely ex- 



60 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

empt as the Chinese from licentious descriptions 
and from every offensive expression. There is 
not a single sentence in the whole of the Sacred 
Books and their annotations that may not be read 
aloud in every family circle. Again, in every 
other non-Christian country, idolatry has been 
associated with human sacrifices and with the 
deification of vice, accompanied by licentious rites 
and orgies. No sign of all tliis exists in China." 

Beautiful as are these tributes, they might with 
equal justice be applied to Emerson's " Essays." 
Both philosophers recognized the practical utility 
of the golden rule as a national policy, but neither 
promised anything further, or tried to direct any- 
thing beyond the mind and heart. Confucius 
made no promises, like the Bible, of future re- 
ward for doing good, or held up glittering prizes 
like Mahomet. He was only a teacher, and taught 
as best he could the doctrine of sympathy and 
benevolence, whereby man might live righteously 
in this present life, be at peace mth his neighbors, 
and enjoy the happiness of a good conscience. 
He wrote only of what he knew, or of what he or 
others had experienced. He had nothing to say 
of miracles, superstitions, or manifestations, as did 
the early writers of the Roman Christian church. 
When questioned regarding supernaturalism, he 



THE HOLD OF CONFUCIANISM, 61 

replied : " A superior man does not talk about 
mysterious powers and supernatural spirits." 
Confucius, however, believed in good and evil 
spirits, like all the great scholars of his age, al- 
though he would not teach or talk of them. He 
exactly predicted his own death, because of a 
report that a unicorn had been caught during a 
hunting expedition of the duke, which he con- 
sidered an evil omen. 

The wonder of Confucianism is the hold that 
it has taken on the Chinese race, and on all other 
races that have come directly under its influence. 
Even the barbaric Mongols from the wild steppes 
became easy converts ; and seven hundred years 
after his death we find the immediate successor of 
the grea,t Kublai Khan issuing an edict to hold 
the memory of Confucius in the highest rever- 
ence, while the next Mongol emperor ordered that 
the Confucian classic on " Filial Piety " should 
be translated into the Mongol language. 

To-day the child in China learns his characters 
from the Confucian classics, and the old man dies 
with a volume in his hand. The consular inter- 
preter is a graduate of Yale, and has lived for ten 
years in the United States ; and yet his little son 
of eight has a private tutor, who comes every day 
to instruct him in the writings of the master. 



62 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

He will learn English later, but nothing must 
interfere in his being thoroughly grounded in the 
Confucian classics. 

I may be repeating myself, but I cannot help 
impressing upon the minds of American students 
that as Shakspere is the greatest of English 
writers, so Confucius is pre-eminently the greatest 
writer of another civilization ; that he was no pre- 
tender or sham, or even revolutionist, — he was 
simply one of the great actual characters of 
history, and is no more mythological than his 
contemporaries in the religious and philosophical 
revival that was at the time sweeping over the 
pagan world, led by Pythagoras in Greece, Eze- 
kiel and Daniel among the Jews, Gautama in 
India, and Zoroaster in Persia. America and Eu- 
rope will become better acquainted with China 
and Chinese history in the next generation, and 
then Confucius will be better understood and 
honored for himself rather than for the so-called 
religion of which he was unwittingly the founder. 



THE TSIN BTNJSTT. 63 



IV. 

FROM THE TSIN TO THE TANG 
DYNASTIES. 

[255 B.C. TO 656 A.D.] 

THE example and repeated warnings of 
Confucius did not save the Chow dynasty. 
It had become too debased, too licentious, 
and too effeminate to do more than carry on court 
intrigue, and plot its own destruction. It, however, 
will forever remain famous as having produced the 
three greatest minds in Chinese history, — Laotze 
(B.C. 604), the founder of the Taoist philosophy; 
Mencius (B.C. 371), who as a writer and thinker 
stands only second to Confucius; and Confucius. 
Around these are grouped a list of distinguished 
names in war, diplomacy, and literature, whose 
deeds are still sung, and whose words are still 
honored. 

There is little of interest in the records of the 
short-lived Tsin dynasty (b.c. 255-206). Its 
doings were but a repetition of the acts of the last 
of the Sungs, — rebellions, murders, court cabals, 



64 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

and wars along the frontier. The Emperor Chung 
shocked the court ceremonial of his age by taking 
to himself the editorial " AVe " and " Us " in speak- 
ing of himseK; and when it was pointed out to 
him that none of his famous predecessors had arro- 
gated such pompous titles, he modestly replied 
that he considered his virtues and achievements 
equal to any three of the quondam sitters on the 
dragon throne, and consequently it was only right 
that he should address himself in the plural. Be- 
cause the scholars persisted in drawing invidious 
comparisons between himself and the illustrious 
Yau and Shun, and proved their comparisons by 
quotations from Confucius and Mencius, Chung 
issued an order that all the classical works in the 
empire should be burned ; that if two scholars 
were found talking together about the classics they 
were to be put to death ; and that if they were 
heard expressing their belief that the ancient 
books and customs were superior to those of to- 
day, they and their families were to be executed. 
Soon after, finding that the scholars had not im- 
plicitly obeyed his orders, he decreed that four 
hundred and sixty of the most eminent be decapi- 
tated as a gentle reminder, — an example of press 
censorship that leaves the newspaper men of the 
Spanish- American war something to be thankful 



THE ''JACKSON'' OF CHINA. 65 

fori Chung, or as he called himself, Hwang-ti, 
was a hot-headed, sturdy ruler of the General Jack- 
son type. He believed that the way " to resume 
specie payments was to resume ; " and when the 
Tartars became extremely troublesome on the 
northern borders it occurred to him that it would 
be less worry and expense to employ his army to 
erect a wall along the entire frontier than to deci- 
mate it in meeting the hardy Huns in the field. 
The wall was completed in five years. It is fifteen 
hundred miles long, and broad enough for six 
horsemen to ride abreast. As the builder of the 
great wall, which has been accounted one of the 
seven wonders of the world, Chung has written 
his name by the side of the architects of the pyra- 
mids and the hanging gardens of Babylon. 

With all his intellect and superb force of char- 
acter, Chung had his weak points, but he was strong 
even in them. He had no desire to mount the 
dragon chariot, and become a guest on high, and 
he therefore prosecuted the search for an elixir of 
life with a fierce determination that was worthy of a 
better cause. He took all kinds of decoctions, and 
must have been a gold-mine to all the quacks and 
priests in his dominion. The only result was that 
Chung commenced to see visions, and discovered 
his nerves. He called a consultation of doctors; 



66 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

and they decided that he was pursued by malig- 
nant spirits, and that he must arrange to spend his 
nights so that no one should know in what part of 
his palace he intended to sleep. Chung did not 
believe in half-measures ; so he built a palace of 
a thousand bedrooms, one for each wife, with a 
great central hall that would seat ten thousand 
persons. Seven hundred thousand criminals and 
prisoners were employed in its erection. The 
scheme worked splendidly, and Chung was able 
to evade his ghostly pursuers by this game of hide 
and seek. Unfortunately, however, he grew over- 
bold in time, and took a tour through his kingdom, 
during which he became a guest on high in spite 
of his costly precautions. 

It is to be regretted that none of the vast palaces 
and mausoleums of which we have record were 
not allowed to remain like the pyramids of Egypt. 
Each dynasty or, often, each new emperor signal- 
ized its or his advent to the throne by destroying 
all the buildings and monuments of his predeces- 
sors. It was done as a protest against the extrava- 
gance of a former reign, and as a promise for the 
future. The son and successor of Chung built a 
palace under ground for the reception of his 
father's body. It was luxurious in the extreme, 
and adorned with gold, silver, and precious stones. 



THE HAN DTNASTT, 67 

When completed several hundreds of the most 
beautiful of Chung's concubines and their atten- 
dants were buried with the royal corpse. The 
building of this vast mausoleum was the last straw 
that broke the people's back, and the first act of 
the rebel who overthrew the Tsin dynasty was to 
plunder and burn both the palace and the tomb. 

The famous Han dynasty, that directed the des- 
tiny of 400,000,000 people for 427 years (b.c. 
20G-A.D. 221), came into royal power through 
bloodshed and crime, and went out in murder, 
rebellion, and weakness. The details of each 
reign are sickening, and a description of the in- 
human cruelties becomes nauseating. It is char- 
acteristic that the court historian should have 
dwelt so largely on his nation's crimes, and seemed 
to gloat and revel in the record of blood and 
misery. It is only incidentally that we learn of 
worthy deeds, great inventions, and kindly actions. 
The one glaring picture that is held up to view is 
always Nero and the Inquisition. Yet if we give 
one look and pass on, there are other pictures that 
shed a luster on the Han dynasty that saves one 
from entirely forgetting that the Chinese are 
human after all. 

The action of the Emperor Chung was repudi- 
ated, and the edict against literature was removed. 



68 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

From secure places of hiding came treasured copies 
of the classics, and from the memories of the old 
literati were written down the sayings of Confucius 
and Mencius. The impetus thus given to litera- 
ture not only reproduced the ancient, but created 
a new school ; and from nothing the Imperial 
Library in the next two hundred years amassed 
3,123 works on the classics, 2,705 on philosophy, 
and 1,383 on poetry. In B.C. 179, the emperor, 
Wun Ti, established two royal mints, and fixed the 
value of the coins. In a succeeding reign the first 
property tax was promulgated, and everyone was 
required to submit an estimate of the value of his 
worldly possessions, and pay into the treasury five 
per cent. The art of making paper from bamboo 
was discovered at the end of the first century, A.D., 
which was quickly followed by the invention of 
ink. To a Han belongs the credit of having intro- 
duced his people to Buddhism, and of making it the 
court religion. Jesus Christ had been dead sixty- 
five years when the emperor Ming Ti sent ambas- 
sadors to India in search of a new religion. There 
was no pretense at conversion, no arguments ad- 
vanced, no reasons given why all should pin their 
faith on the new god Fo which the embassy dis- 
covered. Ming Ti treated the subject in the same 
offhand manner with which lie revised the criminal 



MING TI SEEKS A NEW RELIGION. 69 

law by making it possible to commute capital 
crimes by money payments. The doctrine of the 
transmigration of souls amused him, as the scale 
of rewards and punishments pleased his ministers, 
and appealed to the popular imagination as it 
promised a future life. So by a word it was done. 
Had his ambassadors gone farther, and reached 
Judea, the same flippant words would have made 
the gentle teachings of Jesus Christ the religion of 
China, — a thought so tremendous in its possibili- 
ties that it makes one stagger to consider it. What 
would have been the history of China, the history 
of Asia, the history of the world to-day had some 
traveler told the emperor the story of the miracle 
of turning water into wine, or of the loaves and 
fishes, before he had heard of the Indian sage? 
What would Christianity have done for the 
Chinese ? 

In war and diplomacy the Hans left an enviable 
record. They penetrated and subdued the nations 
up to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Cochin 
China and the now famous Liaotung peninsula 
were reduced to feudatories, Yunnan was added 
to the empire, and diplomatic relations were 
established with Turkestan and Arabia. 

Weak as was the last Han, there was still no 
man strong enough, by himself, to succeed him. 



70 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

The dragon throne was a glittering prize that 
danced before the eyes of each great feudal lord, 
and brought about a fierce contest that lasted for 
forty-three years. Like the War of the Roses 
and the Thirty Years' War, "the War of the 
Three Kingdoms " is the unfailing inspiration 
for poet and story-teller. It is a period full of 
romance and heroism and hard fighting and great 
generalship, that reminds one of the stories of 
the Iliad, and of King Arthur and the knights of 
the Round Table. There were Chinese Glaucuses 
and Diomeds, Hectors and Ajaxes, and the Chroni- 
cles of Froissart, and curiously enough literature 
walked hand in hand with war. It was a golden 
age for the literati, as the deeds of leaders and 
heroes furnished them with stirring themes and 
abmidant materials. The names of the great 
rival generals, Chu Kuliang and Szemai, are to 
the Chinese what that of Richard Coeur de Lion 
is to the English, and Sobieski to the Poles. One 
incident of their picturesque careers has been the 
inspiration of as many poems and stories as Eng- 
lish writers have found in the wanderings of 
Robert Bruce. Szemai had utterly defeated and 
cut up Chu Kuliang's army, and forced him to 
take refuge in the walled city of Hanchung, with 
only three followers. The great general was, 



CHU KULIJNG AND SZEMAL 71 

however, equal to the occasion. As his rival's 
armies appeared before the walls he ordered the 
four gates of the city to be thrown open, while he 
calmly took a position on a tower over the most 
conspicuous of them, and began to play the guitar. 
As the enemy appeared they heard with amaze- 
ment the music, saw the open gates, and looked 
in vain for the sentinels. Szemai came personally 
to examine the strange sight, and listened wonder- 
struck, to hear his crafty old foe sing joyfully 
to the accompaniment of his instrument. " He 
seems too happy, does that man," said Szemai, 
*' for our comfort, and he evidently has some deep- 
laid scheme in his brain by which he means to 
bring disaster upon us all." And rather than 
risk his freshly won laurels he hastily retreated 
from before Chu Kuliang and his guitar. 

A nephew of the great Szemai ended the age of 
chivalry and blood, brought the three kingdoms 
under one head, and established the Western Tsin 
dynasty (a.d. 265-317). The new emperor 
established the Salic Law, declaring that, " women 
should not reign, nor take any part in public 
matters." A good law, no doubt, as Chinese his- 
torians aver, but one that the son of Wu Ti found 
as impossible to put into force as did Adam in the 
garden, or Antony in Egypt. 



72 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

An embassy from the Roman emperor, Theodo- 
sius, arrived during the reign of Wu Ti, and the 
making of cloth from cotton was introduced. 
The Eastern Tsin dynasty broke down from sheer 
weakness. It produced but one great man, and 
he became the founder of the Sung dynasty. 
Added to the usual rebellions which distracted 
every dynasty, the incursions of Tartars, and 
" Outer Barbarians," — as all outsiders from the 
earliest days have been styled, — became more fre- 
quent and disastrous during the Sungs. Shau Ti, 
the second ruler of the Sungs, built a wall six 
hundred miles in length to protect his northern 
borders, — one of those stupendous undertakings 
that only the Chinese would project and carry 
out. 

It is told that, during the wars that the Sungs 
waged on one of their great feudatory kings, 
the supplies of the royal army were cut off, and a 
retreat was ordered in the face of a victorious 
enemy. The retreat was rapidly becoming a 
panic, and it was only a question of days when 
the great army of veterans would become hunted 
fuo-itives in the wilds of Honan. To avert this 
calamity General Tautsi resorted to a thoroughly 
Chinese stratagem. During one night he kept 
his half -famished soldiers carrying sand in baskets, 



A MILITARY STRATEGIST, 73 

and heaping it up by the roadside. As each man 
went by the officer in charge the number of loads 
he had carried was called out. The sound of 
their voices and the regular tread of the workers 
could be heard in the camp of the king of Wei, 
but no one could guess what it all meant. Spies 
were sent out ; but the night was dark, and 
although they could more distmctly hear the 
calling of numbers and the incessant tramp of 
many feet, they could not satisfy the uneasiness 
of Wei. Just before dawn the Sung general 
ordered that the great heaps of sand be sprinkled 
with a thin covering of rice. When the sun 
broke out, and the Wei men saw the vast heaps of 
rice in the opposite camp, they were struck with 
amazement and chagrin. They believed that 
large stores of provisions, and no doubt reenforce- 
ments, had arrived from the capital; and as always 
with the Chinese a suspicion immediately becomes 
a fact, the starving Sung army was allowed to 
escape unmolested. 

This is but one of the many incidents that are 
related of the gallant career of the statesman and 
soldier, Tautsi. His fame spread far beyond the 
borders of China, and he was feared by barbarians 
as well as by his master's unruly vassals. It is 
typical, however, of the Chinese character that he 



74 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

went the way of all servants of the state whose 
services called for extraordinary rewards — mur- 
dered in cold blood for fear that he might possibly 
aspire to the Royal Yellow. It was as fatal for a 
general to win a battle as it was for him to lose 
it. In one case he aroused his master's fear, in 
the other his wrath. 

The short-lived Tsi dynasty (a.d. 479-502) 
was wrecked by a woman. Panfei, the mistress 
of the Emperor Tung Hwun, the fourth and last 
of the line, was celebrated for exquisite grace 
and beauty. For her the emperor built a palace 
to rival in splendor anything that had preceded 
it. The walls were rendered perpetually fragrant 
by a plaster impregnated with musk. The floors 
were covered with the most costly designs. One 
room was paved with golden lilies, which was re- 
sponsible for the artificial cramping of the feet of 
the women of China. As Panfei danced before 
the emperor, he was so charmed with her grace 
that he exclaimed, " See, every step she takes 
makes a lily to grow," so ever after the small foot 
was styled the " Golden Lily." There is a true 
saying in China that, " Every pair of golden lilies 
costs a jar of tears." Tung Hwun lived and 
loved, and was murdered by an outraged populace, 
over-taxed in order that his proud beauty might 



DEPLORABLE DESPOTS. 75 

outshine Meihi, Taki, and all the beautiful throne 
records of former dynasties. 

The fate of Panfei, however, had little effect on 
the morals of the three dynasties that followed. 
For one hundred and sixteen years, to 618 A.D., 
there is little that can be recorded, except a repe- 
tition of the deplorable phases of Chinese court 
history, with which the reader is already too 
familiar. One ruler deliberately set fire to the 
royal library of one hundred and forty thousand 
books, on the approach of an enemy, because " all 
my reading and study have availed me nothing 
... in the hour of my extremity." Another built 
a wall three hundred miles in length, extending 
from Chihli to Shansi, in which two million people 
were engaged ; and for his amusement he organ- 
ized a gigantic debating society between the 
priests of the Taoist and Buddhist faiths. Being 
in the chair, he decided that the Buddhists had 
the best of the argument, and thereupon ordered 
the Taoists, on pain of death, to shave their heads 
and become bonzes. Preferring to lose their hair 
to their necks, they all cheerfully complied, and 
the emperor and the barber wrought an instanta- 
neous conversion. Another emperor was known 
as the " Merry Monarch," and lived the life of a 
Haroun-al-Raschid. They had a beggars' village 



76 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

built in the royal gardens, where the mendicants 
of the city were at liberty to take up their abode 
at night. His majesty, dressed in rags, and like 
the meanest of them, wandered through the streets 
of the capital with his straw wallet, the beggar's 
badge. He would also make his rounds among 
the mandarins in the palace, and ladies of the 
royal household. Whoever gave him alms he 
would reward and surprise with high official posi- 
tion or costly presents, after he had thrown off 
the disguise. In a.d. 852 yellow was adopted 
as the royal color by the Emperor Kautsu, the 
founder of the Sui dynasty, and the one strong 
character of the period. To the successor of 
Kautsu belongs the reputation of building the 
vast canal system of China, of being a patron of 
art and literature, and of being the most reckless 
and wildly extravagant emperor that ever occupied 
the dragon throne. Wang Ti lived a short life 
and a merry one ; no expenditure appalled him, 
and no sacrifice of blood and treasure deterred 
him from following to the very end any of his 
fancies. Even the building of the canal system, 
that has made his name famous, was a whim for 
the gratification of his own pleasures. He wished 
to visit all the prominent cities of the empire in 
the most comfortable and luxurious way. He 



IFANG TVS GRAND CANALS, 77 

ordered that canals be immediately dug from the 
river Pien, a branch of the Han, in Hupeh, to the 
river Sz, a short stream in Shantung; another 
from Sz to communicate with the river Hwai, and 
that the existing water-courses be widened. At 
the same time he ordered built forty thousand 
*' dragon boats " for the accommodation of his 
three thousand concubines and immediate court. 
The canals were not mere ditches, but magnificent 
examples of both engineering and artistic skill — 
nothing was left unfinished to offend the critical 
eye of the dandy. They were one hundred and 
twenty feet wide, lined with cut stone, with paved 
roads on either side, shaded by full-grown trees. 
Taskmasters drove the laborers day and night, 
and of the million men employed it is stated that 
over forty per cent died. In the first royal jour- 
ney from Lohyang, the capital, to Nanking, the 
procession of boats extended for over sixty miles, 
and eighty thousand soldiers were detailed to drag 
them. The royal barge was two hundred feet 
long and forty feet high, with four decks. Every 
district through which they passed was levied 
upon for provisions to support this immense host 
in transit. The magnificent pageant swept through 
the empire for eight months, the wonder and ruin 
of all who came within its reach. The vast pal- 



7S CHIN.rS OPEN DOOR. 

aces, gardens, towns, artificial lakes and mountains, 
that Wang Ti the niagniticent built in the short 
twelve years of his reign were, according to the 
custom of the times, destroyed by his successor ; 
but the canals remained a blessinqf to the descend- 
ants of the laborei's who had died in tlieir con- 
struction. Nebuchadnezzar, the Pharaohs, Xero, 
and Louis XIV. were but feeble imitators of this? 
royal Chinese spendthrift. Cleopatra's barge and 
Babylon's hanging gardens were duplicated on a 
magnificent scale by Yang Ti. He had a godlike 
genius for spending money. In his palace garden, 
which was so great that it contained an artificial 
lake three miles wide, and three artificial islands 
one htmdred feet high, the flowering shrubs and 
trees were kept in perpetual bloom by skilled 
workmen, who renewed every fallen flower with 
such exquisite imitation in silk and satin that no 
one could tell the natural from the artificial at a 
short distance. After his death, it was discovered 
that he had used up all the precious metals in tlie 
empire, and that money was so scarce that pieces 
of leather and paper, with their values stamped 
upon them, had to be used in trade. He took his 
dethronement with the same gay nonchalance with 
which he had sat upon the throne. To his queen 
he said, " Jov and sorrow both come to everv man. 



A ROYAL CHESTERFIELD. 79 

Lot us, then, \^/ay c/dch as it co^rJf^s, and make the 
best of ]ilV. we earj ; " and of his princely execu- 
tioners }je asked — politely disinterestedly — 
" VVliat sin liave I comrnitt^^d that you wish U) 
take away my life?" "Sin," they replied, "why, 
what sin is there tljat you liave not heen guilty 
of?" *' VViiat you say may be true," answered 
the royal Chesterfield ; " hand me the silken cord. 
I have had more pleasure in my life than you can 
have at my death." 



80 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 



V. 



FROM WU THE EMPRESS TO THE 
LAST OF THE MINGS, 

[A.D. 656 TO A. D. 1644.] 

THE house of Tang opened a new era in 
the history of China, and marked the close 
of what might be styled " The Middle 
Ages.*' It has appropriately been called the Au- 
gustan age of Chinese literature. Each emperor 
strove to outdo his predecessors in the fostering of 
scholars and the education of the gentry. Great 
libraries were established, schools sprang up, and 
in the place of eunuchs and concubines, poets, essay- 
ists, and historians thronged the successive courts. 
"The complete poems of the Tang dynasty" will be 
found in the home of every well-to-do Chinaman of 
to-day. The writings of Confucius were annotated 
and popularized ; and in 740 that deathless teacher 
was raised to the rank of a prince, and his statue 
placed above that of the famous Duke of Chow. 
The sixth emperor of the Tangs founded Hanlin 



THE AUGUSTAN AGE OF CHINA. 81 

College (a.d. 755), the great post-graduate uni- 
versity of China. From its fellows most of the 
ministers of state have been chosen. At the time 
when scholars, princes, artists, priests, musicians, 
players of chess, actors, etc., were competing for its 
degrees and honors, Europe was just emerging from 
the barbarism into which she had been plunged by 
the conquest of the Gothic tribes. England was 
divided among Saxon princes, and France was in 
the rude state which preceded the reign of Charle- 
magne. The Emperor Kau Tsu ordered an ex- 
amination of all temples and nunneries, and turned 
out to earn their own living fully a hundred thou- 
sand inmates who had been luxuriating in idleness 
and immorality, while Teh Tsung sent home a 
thousand ladies of his harem in order to lighten 
the burdens of state. War was almost continu- 
ously carried on with the so-called barbarians on 
the frontiers, in which the Chinese arms were 
generally successful, and large additions of terri- 
tory were made. 

The attention of Europe was called to China 
during this dynasty by two celebrated Arab traders, 
whose descriptions of Chinese life might pass for 
pen pictures of the country to-day. They men- 
tioned the copper money, the rice-wine, and the use 
of tea as a beverage. They were followed by 



82 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

envoys from the pope, who found that the Nes- 
torian Christians had already been in the field. 
The most remarkable character on the throne, if 
not the strongest, was the Empress Wu, whose 
antecedents and career are almost paralleled by that 
of the present empress dowager. Although never 
officially on the dragon throne, Wu ruled China 
with a rod of iron for fifty-four years (656-710). 
She permitted no one to stand in her way, and the 
four emperors who came within her "sphere of in- 
fluence " were mere puppets in her hands. She 
was cruel and immoral, and added to the subtle 
craft of a woman the intellect of a statesman. She 
made her name known and feared to the remotest 
corners of the empire, and avenged every outbreak 
with a merciless hand. The Kitans and Turco- 
mans soon learned to dread the length and strength 
of her arm. She reluctantly resigned the reins of 
power at the age of eighty, and is known in 
Chinese history by the title of " Wu, the Equal of 
Heaven." The present Empress Dowager Tsu Tsi, 
who has ruled China for forty years on much the 
same lines as her predecessor, will no doubt be 
satisfied with the more modest title of " The Equal 
of Wu." Four of the later Tang emperors died 
from the effects of experimenting with " elixirs of 
immortality," and it would have been little loss to 



''THE MEN OF TANCr 83 

the nation's history had the last half-dozen been 
troubled with the same laudable desire to live 
*' ten thousand years ten thousand." To be styled 
one of " The men of Tang " is considered a title 
of honor ; but the dynasty, with all its glories, went 
out in weakness and disgrace, as all the dynasties 
have, and as all probably will so long as China is a 
nation. 

The last of the proud Tangs " voluntarily " 
resigned the " Yellow " to the murderer of his own 
father ; and a period of fifty years succeeded, in 
which the great princes disputed the right of each 
fresh usurper, and a state of turmoil existed similar 
to that of three centuries before, when the Tsin 
dynasty was overthrown. Five different families 
were represented on the throne by thirteen em- 
perors — an unlucky number, for most of them died 
unwilHngly. The only event of note that occurred 
during these turbulent times was the discovery of 
the art of printing, five hundred years before it 
was known in Europe. It is very probable that 
printing from blocks was in use long prior to this 
date ; but it is not until 932 that the Chinese his- 
torian incidentally mentions that the nine classics 
were printed by imperial order from wooden blocks, 
and sold to the public. It is curious that it was 
not thought of sufficient interest to record either 



84 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the inventor's name or to claim the invention :^r 
the Emperor Ming Tsung. Under the last but 
one of the rulers of the " five dynasties " there 
was a great scarcity of copper money, owing to the 
unprecedented casting of idols and statues to 
ancestors. The emperor ordered, to the horror of 
the priests, that these idols should be sent to the 
royal mint to be re-born as the root of all evil. A 
deputation protested against such liberties being 
taken with their gods. His majesty listened 
quietly and replied, " The man that does right and 
benefits his fellow men is a true reverencer of the 
idols. The gods have the good of mankind at 
heart, and therefore they will be quite willing to 
have their images broken up. For myself, if my 
death would bring happiness to my people, I 
would wilHngly give up my life for them." 

Shih Tsung lived up to his noble sentiments, 
and died after a severe campaign against the 
hardy Khitans. He was unable, however, to save 
his throne for his son, or to effectually crush these 
warlike adventurers, who were destined for a time 
to become the balance of power in the civil wars 
during the Sung dynasty. In 982, during the 
reign of the second Sung, a deputation from a 
" barbarian ■ ' tribe appeared, that were later to 
sweep the Chinese, the Khitans, and the more 



A CHINESE REFORMER. 85 

warlike Kins before them, and become the actual 
rulers of the empire. These were the Mongols. 
They came to acknowledge the supremacy of 
China, and they stayed to overthrow it. 

China has never lacked for reformers or at- 
tempted reforms. As all reforms are pure experi- 
ments, the clever theories of plausible ministers 
found pliable material to experiment on among 
the patient hordes of the Coolie class. They bore 
with the royal reformers, though much like the 
Scotchman who was " willing to be convinced, but 
would like to see the man who could convince 
him." The so-called reforms, however, usually 
ended in great suffering for the benefited, with 
the net result that another fine theory had gone 
wrong. 

Wang Ngan, the prime minister of the Emperor 
Shen Tsung (1068-1086), was a typical repre- 
sentative of the Chinese reformer. Some of his 
acts read like a page out of modern history. He 
had a commission appointed to tour the country 
districts, and report on the nature of the soil and 
the condition of crops, so that he could legislate 
for the farmer, and alleviate his condition willy 
nilly. In the summer of 1069 he promulgated his 
first interesting reform, by proposing that the entire 
commerce of the country should be carried on by 



86 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the state, so that the people would have nothing 
to do but produce. The national taxes were to be 
paid in produce ; and the government was to buy 
the surplus, and transport it to sections of the 
country where it would be most in demand. The 
middle man and money lender were immediately 
wiped out, as predicted by Wang; but in their 
place sprang up an army of officials, who were 
charged with the carrying out of this gigantic 
undertaking. The country swarmed with them ; 
and the poor farmers had to entertain them befit- 
ting their rank, and properly bribe them to obtain 
a good price for the produce. More and more of the 
yield of the empire was consumed in taxes, until at 
last the surplus was hardly worth selling, and it 
was clearly obvious that the reform needed reform- 
ing. But like the modern professional reformer, 
Wang was equal to the occasion. If the agricultur- 
ists had lost money by his first attempt to make 
them rich, he was now prepared to advance them 
money against their crops, which was to be repaid 
twice a year at the modest interest of twenty-four 
percent. He modified this later by making a State 
Loan, compulsory both to rich and poor, at the 
slightly increased rate of thirty-three and a third 
per cent per annum. This reform came harder at 
first on the rich than on the poor, as the poor 



WANG AND THE REFORMERS. 87 

borrowed with no hope of repaying ; but when a 
drought came the officials, who were bound to de- 
liver or pay into the treasury the interests on their 
loans, found that there were no crops upon which 
to levy, and began to torture the people ; then all 
classes united in a wail of lamentation, that reached 
even the dragon throne. The reform was con- 
sequently suspended, whereupon heavy rains fell 
throughout the empire. Nothing daunted, Wang 
produced from his sleeve another reform that came 
near being the last straw. This was styled the 
" Military Enrollment Act," which divided the 
people of the empire into divisions of ten families, 
something after the old Jewish law. All able- 
bodied men were to continue their labor, and at 
the same time hold themselves in readiness for an 
instant call. Like the man who called wolf when 
there was no wolf, practice summons, or false calls 
became so frequent that able-bodied men by the 
thousands voluntarily maimed themselves, and even 
cut off their arms and legs so as not to be subject 
to the whim of the great reformer. Wang went on 
with a whole series of reforms, more or less ingen- 
ious, which are interesting to the reader rather than 
to the sufferer. If the American would-be reformer, 
with a bright new idea upon which he wishes to 
experiment, will study the history of China, the 



88 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

chances are that he will find that his particular 
pet reform has been thoroughly tried a thousand 
years before he discovered it. Wang was a firm 
believer in himself. In 1074 the Khitans sent 
ambassadors, and demanded the cession of two 
hundred li of Chinese territory. Wang consid- 
ered this very bad taste on the part of the bar- 
barians, but advised compliance ; " for," he argued, 
" when my reforms commence to work they will 
make the nation strong, and we shall demand it 
back again with large additions." Wang's faith, 
however, did not move the mountain; and the first 
act of the famous Empress Kau, on the death of 
the Emperor Shen Tsung, was to dismiss Wang 
from office, and reform his reforms. 

The last one hundred and seventy-five years of 
the Sung dynasty were filled with wars mthin and 
without. The hardy Khitan Tartars went down 
before their more hardy relatives, the Khin Tartars ; 
and they in t-urn were thoroughly subjugated by 
the Mongol Tartars under the lead of their famous 
khans, Genghis and Kublai. To the world at 
large there are not more than five names in all 
Chinese history that come easily to the lips, — 
these two great khans, Confucius, Mencius, and 
Li Hung Chang ; and they belong to the world's 
pantheon of history-makers. Genghis easily ranks 



GENGHIS THE MONGOL. 89 

with Alexander and Napoleon, and the territories 
he overran and conquered were greater than the 
combined areas and population of the empires of 
Alexander and Napoleon. His life is one of the 
great historical romances of the world's story, and 
a romance in which the chief actor never permits 
the interest to flag. As leader of the Mongol 
Tartars he swept everything from the Danube to 
the Pacific, from the unbroken ice of the arctic to 
the snow-peaks of the Himalayas, and might, with 
much more right than Alexander, have sighed for 
more worlds to conquer. It is noteworthy that of 
all the races with which he battled, from Cracow 
to Peking, — embracing forty conquered kingdoms, 
— the only nation which withstood his consum- 
mate generalship was the Chinese. One cannot 
but wonder what would have been the fate of 
Alexander the Great had he been told, when he 
stood on the banks of the Indus, sorrowing be- 
cause the world was so small, that there was an 
empire north of his greater than Persia, and more 
warlike and richer than India. Genghis, " the 
curse of God," died at the age of sixty-six, in 
1227, and bequeathed the conquest of the Manchus 
to his son. Okkodai was a worthy successor of a 
great father. He organized his armies for the 
conquest of China with ability and energy, and 



90 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

laid siege to Kaif ungf u — the Kin capital, a 
city of 11,200,000 inhabitants. The investment 
lasted for three months ; and so great were the 
numbers and resources wdthin, that it is a ques- 
tion if the Mongols could have reduced it had the 
Kin general been worthy of his foUoAvers. With 
an offer to surrender he sent to the Mongol gen- 
eral five hundred ladies of his king's court and 
thirty-seven of the royal chariots. The peace 
offering, however, did not touch the stern nature 
of Okkodai, as repeated efforts of the Chinese to 
reach the great Genghis, through woman's charms, 
had failed in the past. He gave one look at the 
assemblage of beauty, and ordered it and the entire 
city to be put to the sword. The Tartar states- 
man and the prime minister for both Genghis and 
Okkodai, — the wise Yeh-lu-chu-tsai, — hearing of 
the savage order, argued with the khan, " The 
land must have people on it, for if there are no 
inhabitants in the country it becomes valueless to 
the sovereign." His counsel prevailed, and China 
was saved from the most gigantic massacre in the 
annals of the world. 

The capture of Kaifungfu, with its incalculable 
wealth, its vast stores and magnificent buildings, 
practically ended the Kin djniasty, and obliterated 
from history a remarkable race, who from begin- 



THE MONGOL CONQUEST. 91 

nings almost as humble as a tribe of North Ameri- 
can Indians, had gradually risen to such might 
that they had conquered the warlike Khitans, and 
so completely possessed the northern part of China, 
that the Chinese, with all their vast resources and 
their almost unlimited command of soldiers, had 
not been able to wrest it from them. 

The Mongols were now free to turn their entire 
attention to the tottering Chinese throne. To 
Okkadai, as to Genghis, it seemed like an over- 
ripe fruit, that was to be had for the picking ; but 
the Mongol soon found that he was not dealing 
with the Russian or the Persian, but with a race 
that knew neither defeat nor despair. It was not 
for him to give the coup de grace to the Sungs. 
In their decay they held on for sixty years ; and, 
had there been any unity of purpose or apprecia- 
tion of events, it is questionable if even Kubiai, 
the mighty grandson of the mighty Genghis, 
would have succeeded. The armies of the Sungs 
fought well only when they were attacked. The 
court was full of intrigues, and the national policy 
was weak and wavering. One figurehead followed 
another in rapid succession, and the different capi- 
tal cities were evacuated as the enemy advanced. 
Kubiai and his great generals, Ashu, Alihaiyai, 
and Bayan, pressed steadily on. They never 



92 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

wavered in their purpose, they held every advan- 
tage, and neither Chinese valor nor Sung diplo- 
macy could check their course. To the sitters on 
the dragon throne the iron khan became the 
very impersonation of fate. To bring the two 
years' siege of the great city of Fanching in Hupeh 
to a conclusion, Kublai sent to Persia for guns 
heavier than had ever been used in China, that 
threw stones weighing over one hundred and fifty 
pounds. Yuchang, Hanyang, Hankow, Cliiaho- 
how, and Nanking fell in rapid succession; and 
in 1276 the Mongols took the capital, Hangchow, 
with the emperor, his mother, his queen, and the 
royal household, and made the brothers of the 
captured emperor fugitives, the elder of whom, 
however, was proclaimed emperor, with his new 
capital at Foochou. 

The duel was nearing an end. For four years 
the royal standard of the Sungs was driven from 
place to place until the last emperor, Ti Ping, was 
cornered at the seaport of Yaishan. The Chinese 
force, consisting of fifty thousand veterans and one 
thousand war-junks, under their famous general 
Chang Shih-kieh, were closely blockaded by an 
overwhelming force. The death struggle lasted 
for a month, and the Chinese fought like rats in a 
trap, desperately but without hope. The fate of 



THE BATTLE OF TAISHAN. 93 

the empire was decided by a tremendous land and 
sea attack, in which the Chinese were utterly 
defeated, and the whole of their fleet captured 
with the exception of sixteen junks with which 
their gallant general managed to break through 
the lines. When the prime minister saw that the 
day was lost, he took the young emperor on his 
back, and sprang into the sea. The body of Ti 
Ping was afterwards picked up, and honorably 
buried by the Mongol general. Over one hun- 
dred thousand Chinese and Mongols were killed 
in this last heroic defense of the boy emperor, and 
the dynasty that had ruled China for three hun- 
dred and twenty years, and next to the Chow 
was the most famous in its annals, ended in a 
glorious defeat. A Chinese historian of the 
Sungs said they "gained the empire by the 
sword and kept it by kindness. Their good- 
ness to the people was not tinged enough 
with severity, and so the kingdom was snatched 
from them. Still, through it the empire was main- 
tained for one hundred and fifty years after it 
seemed to have slipped from their grasp ; and it 
caused such men as Chang Shih-kieh and Wen 
Tien-siang to cling to them to the very last, and 
finally to give their very lives for them." 

The adventures of the loyal Chang Shih-kieh 



94 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

after the battle of Yaishan were in keeping with 
the great name he has made in Chinese history* 
With his sixteen junks he hastened to Wang- 
chow to inquire of the queen dowager if there 
remained any princes of the royal blood under 
whose standard the war could be still carried on. 
But the mother's heart was broken ; and she fol- 
lowed the example of the last of her sons, and 
threw herself into the sea. Chang was unwilling 
to give up ; he , sailed to Cambodia and appealed 
to its king for troops and money ; but finding him- 
self an unwelcome visitor, he turned northward 
hoping to seize Canton. As his little squadron 
was nearing the coast, signs of an approaching 
typhoon caused the men to clamor that he should 
put into a near-by harbor and there land. Instead, 
he ascended a platform high up one of the masts of 
the flagship, and burned incense to heaven, and 
testified : '' 1 have served the house of Chau to the 
utmost of my ability; when one emperor disap- 
peared I set up another, and he also has perished ; 
and now to-day I meet this great storm ; surely it 
must be the will of heaven that the Sung dynasty 
should perish." So he bravely met his end in one 
of those fierce and terrible ty^Dhoons that haunt 
the China seas. 

It was near the end of the Sung dynasty, and 



MARCO POLO, 95 

about the time that Edward I. returned to Eng- 
land from the Holy Land, that Marco Polo visited 
the court of Kublai Khan, and gave the European 
world the first authentic account of this great un- 
known empire, and during the reign of Mangu, 
Kublai's successor, Catholic missionaries presented 
themselves at court, and made brief record of 
what they did and saw. Marco Polo's account 
of the pomp and splendor of the Mongol court, of 
the annual feasts and national holidays, of the in- 
dustries and advanced civilization, filled Europe 
with wonder, and demonstrated how little the 
Chinese historians appreciated the true greatness 
of their nation and the nations that surrounded 
them. Even Europe did not realize the signifi- 
cance of Polo's story, or more justly speaking 
discovery. He told them of the use of bank- 
notes, but it took Europe four centuries to under- 
stand their value to trade. Instead of stealing 
China's brains, Europe only coveted her money, a 
mistake which Kublai did not make in the case of 
Marco Polo, for he made the Westerner his con- 
fidant, and drew upon him for European ideas and 
methods. He carefully sifted the wheat from the 
chaff, and planted it in fertile soil. Polo was a 
man of ability and action, and Kublai was quick 
to appreciate him. He dispatched him over his 



96 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

empire in the capacity of a licenced critic, knowing 
that Polo, with his unprejudiced eyes, could find 
many administrative and political faults that were 
damaging the welfare of the people but were 
hallowed by age and custom. He was a most suc- 
cessful critic ; for in liis extended travels through 
the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, Szechuan, and 
Yunnan he corrected a vast number of abuses, and 
caused the removal of a number of corrupt officials, 
yet he managed to please alike the emperor, the 
Mandarins, and the people. As a reward he was 
appointed governor of the city of Yangchow, and 
might have become the viceroy of his province 
had he been willing to have remained in China ; 
but after three years of gubernatorial power he 
grew homesick, and requested leave of absence to 
visit Venice. Kublai had no desire to lose so 
valuable a servant, and declined to grant his wish. 
Later, however, it happened that the khan sent 
him in charge of a young woman, the bride elect 
of his great-grandson, Arghun Khan of Persia. 
The Mongols were entirely unaccustomed to the 
sea, and in the choice of ambassadors it was Hob- 
son's choice. Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle 
started out on their hazardous undertaking in 
1292, and after a three years' voyage they de- 
livered the bride to the anxious groom. If we are 



KUBLJI KHAN. 97 

to read between the lines in Marco's narrative, it 
is doubtful if she gave more than an unwilling 
hand to her royal spouse. 

Marco Polo's life and adventures in China are 
as interesting reading as the account of a trip to 
the moon could possibly be to-day. China, as 
late as 1300, was almost as much of a terra in- 
cognito as the continent of America was when 
Columbus landed on its shores. His narrative is 
the first view of China through European eyes ; 
and, unfortunately, it was considered at the time 
a fairy story rather than a sober recount of facts. 
Marco Polo's career in this unknown empire forci- 
bly reminds one of Mark Twain's humorous ad- 
ventures of a Yankee in the court of King Arthur, 
Sith the difference that Marco came in contact 
fth a civilization that was in many respects su- 
perior to his own, and with a ruler who, other than 
being a feudal baron, was a statesman, a soldier, 
and a patron of literature. As Genghis had found 
it impossible to subdue the Chinese, his more 
famous successor and grandson, Kublai, had to 
acknowledge his inabihty to annex the Japanese 
Islands. Two great expeditions met with most 
disastrous defeat ; and the ruler of Asia and half 
of Europe recognized that, however victorious his 
veterans were on land, they were useless on the 



98 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

sea. In religious matters Kublai was absolutely 
impartial. His subjects, Mongol or Chinese, were 
permitted freedom of worship as long as their faith 
was moral; and as for himseK he worshiped by 
turns in Buddhist, Confucian, and Mohammedan 
temples; Marco Polo tells us that he likewise 
favored the Christian religion. As for the Tao- 
ists, they were so openly corrupt and fraudulent that 
Kublai ordered a public examination to ascertain 
whether there was any truth in their writings on 
geomancy, necromancy, and astrology. As a result 
of which he ordered that all their books be 
burned, save one classic — " The Tau-teh, or Way 
of Virtue." Kublai's religious attitude might have 
been simply a matter of state policy ; but even so, 
it did much to consolidate his power for the 
benefit of his family, which was the aim of his 
life. The khan profited by the experience of his 
many unfortunate predecessors, and acknowledged 
the fatality of wasting the resources of the empire 
on court orgies, great retinues of dependants and 
concubines. Instead, he built the Grand Canal 
(1282-1289), which connected Canton with Pe- 
king, and also a system of splendid post^roads, 
that were not only a lasting benefit to the people, 
but of great strategic value. 

Once a year Kublai took a vacation, and es- 



THE LAST OF THE MONGOLS 99 

caped the hot climate of the lowlands and the 
enervating ceremonials of court life by a hunting 
expedition on the cool, bracing steppes of Tartary. 
He was a fearless hunter and a most skillful 
hawker; and he kept his muscles hardened and 
his health unimpaired to the day of his death, at 
the age of eighty-three, in 1224. He was suc- 
ceeded by his grandson, Timur, who inherited an 
empire that extended from the China Sea and the 
Indies to the northern extremity of Siberia, and 
from the eastern shores of Asia to the frontiers 
of Poland — the most magnificent heritage that 
ever fell to man. 

For seventy-three years the Mongols ruled 
China; but the successors of Kublai lacked his 
knowledge of men and measures ; and their at- 
tempts to trample out Chinese customs, and de- 
prive them of their share in the government of 
the country, soon alienated the friends made by 
the founder of the Yuen dynasty; the country 
was quickly filled with rebellion, and the court 
with intrigue and corruption. Shunti, the ninth 
and last of the Mongols, reigned from 1331 to 
1366. He left the actual administration of gov- 
ernment to his ministers, and gave himself up to 
the joys of doing nothing gracefully. He even 
neglected the annual hunt, and was a typical 

l.«rc. 



100 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

sample of the usual end of a dynasty. The logi- 
cal time seemed to have arrived for the overthrow 
of the Tartars, and all that the sporadic rebellion 
needed was a leader to make it succeed. 

In the province of Nanking the son of a poor 
laborer, who had taken priestly vows, was watch- 
ing the trend of events from his monastery cell. 
He soon realized what the Chinese lacked, and 
made up his mind that he was the man chosen by 
God to deliver the country from its oppressors. 
Casting aside his cowl for the sword, he sprang 
into the breach, and organized a rebelhon that 
swept every thing before him. With Nanking as 
his capital, he gradually stripped the Mongol em- 
peror of his possessions, until he was able to 
march into Peking practically unopposed. He de- 
clared himself emperor, under the title of Taitsu, 
in 1368. Shunti fled to Tartary, the home of his 
great ancestors, and the Ming dynasty (1368- 
1644) was ushered in. 

Like the founders of each successive dynasty, 
Taitsu, or Hung Wu as he was better known in 
history, was a strong man and an eminent ruler. 
He had not only to effectually crush the Tartar 
power, quell local disturbances, but what was 
more serious, replace Tartar laws and customs 
with the original Chinese. On the whole he was 



THE MINGS. 101 

successful. He commenced in the orthodox way 
of razing the most magnificent buildings of his 
predecessors, reducing the size of his harem, and 
cutting down all unnecessary expenses. He en- 
couraged education, and made literary degrees 
essential to official promotion instead of military 
renown as under Mongol rule. He reestablished 
Hanlin College, and made it in fact what it is in 
name to-day, the Oxford of China. He decreed 
that women should no longer become priestesses 
to Buddha and that no man should take monastic 
vows under the age of forty. Hung Wu reigned 
thirty-one years ; and although the last few years 
were tarnished by unjust and savage acts, the 
glory of his name is safe in Chinese annals. 
There is no fixed rule of primogeniture among 
the Chinese. An emperor is supposed to know 
more about the ability and character of his several 
sons and grandsons than any one else, and he is 
left perfectly free to choose his successor. This 
practice, as proven by the history of China, has 
little to recommend it, as the choice is either made 
in the emperor's dotage, or is forced upon him by 
intriguing ministers or concubines. The founder 
of the Ming Dynasty, instead of securing the 
stability of his own house by nominating his war- 
rior son, the Prince of Yen, succumbed to the 



102 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

cabals of his court, and chose his sixteen-year-old 
grandson, Hwei Ti, his successor. There are 
only two ways to the throne in China, revolution 
or birth coupled with luck ; but the favorite way 
to reach royal power has always been the securing 
of the appointment of children to the royal yel- 
low. The mother then is' doubly empress : she 
commands the king through her motherhood, and 
the people by means of her regency. The boy 
emperor is as much her slave as his meanest 
subject. The Prince of Yen, however, had no in- 
tention of seeing the throne go uncontested to his 
young nephew, and he himself become the subject 
of his sister-in-law. The young emperor was no 
match for the fearless soldier; and within four 
years Peking was in the hands of Yen, the queen 
cremated in her own palace, and the boy emperor 
a refugee in a Buddhist monastery in Yunnan, 
where for forty years he remained undiscovered. 
A weakness for writing poetry, however, caused 
his recognition ; and he was transferred to Peking, 
where he died a state prisoner. It is unfortunate 
that his poetry was not equal to his theme ; for 
the glories and miseries of his own strange career 
supplied a subject that with skillful handling might 
have made his name imperishable, and would have 
been of untold value to the historian. 



TAMERLANE. 103 

The Prince of Yen, who took the name Yunglo, 
changed the seat of government from Nanking to 
Peking. In spite of his early cruelties and bar- 
barous reprisals, he was, on the whole, a strong 
character, and his country prospered at home and 
abroad. He has left, however, the reputation for 
great moderation and justice in administering the 
affairs of government. In the field he was always 
the soldier, grim and unforgiving. The Tartars 
learned to fear his northern marches, and he 
added Tonquin and Cochin China to the empire. 
Under his direction a commission was appointed 
to comj^ile the first encyclopaedia of literature. 
It was completed in 1407, and consisted of 22,877 
books, besides a table of contents which filled sixty 
volumes. Two years previous died the most 
dangerous enemy of the dynasty, the Tartar Khan 
Timour, or Tamerlane (" Timur the Lame "), 
whose conquests almost equaled those of the 
resistless Genghiz. He was at the time of his 
death organizing a vast army for the reconquest of 
China, and it is questionable whether Yunglo the 
Ming emperor would have been able to withstand 
his hardy legions and consummate generalship. 

Timour is to-day a greater hero in Mongol eyes 
than either of his two great predecessors. About 
the fire, when a dozen Mongols are gathered to- 



104 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

gether on the wild steppes, their bards still sing 
his praises — 

"We live in our vast plains tranquil and peaceful as sheep, 

yet our 
Hearts are fervent and full of life ; the memory of the golden 

age of 
Timour is ever present to our minds. "Where is the chief who 

is to place 
Himself at our head, and render us once more great warriors ? 
O great Timour, will thy divine soul soon revive ? 
Return, return ; we await thee, O Timour ! " 

Timour's death relieved China forever from fear 
of Tartar subjugation, but never during the entire 
Ming dynasty was the nation free from £he ravages 
of these daring freebooters. They were often suc- 
cessful, and at one time slaughtered over a hundred 
thousand soldiers, and captured the Chinese Em- 
peror Changtung. While the Chinese were 
battling with their hereditary enemies, and the 
history of the vast empire was doing little more 
than sluggishly repeating itself, Columbus was 
discovering America, and the Portuguese were 
rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Rafael Pres- 
tello, a lieutenant of Albuquerque, landed, in 
1516, at the mouth of the Canton River, a few 
mil 38 from the present site of Hong Kong. His 
was the distinction of first flying a European flag 
in Chinese waters. Prestello, however, was more 



A PORTUGUESE INVASION. 105 

modest than his contemporary Spanish, Portu- 
guese, and English discoverers in America, and 
failed to take possession of all the countries washed 
by the ocean that lapped the coast in the name of 
his august sovereign. It was a momentous 
theatrical opportunity lost. With perfect impunity 
he might have unfurled the Lusitanian banner on 
Chinese soil, raised his trusted blade above the 
damp plumes of his helmet, and laid claim to an 
empire greater than all Europe, and containing 
more wealth than the newly discovered Indies. 
Instead of writing himself immortal, Prestello 
sailed calmly back to Malacca and simply reported 
favorably on the prospective trade opportunities 
of the new land. This led to the dispatch of 
Perez de Andrade for Canton with a squadron of 
eight vessels. His arrival and subsequent trading 
operations were of much more importance to China 
in European eyes than it was to the Chinese, in 
fact his arrival is not even noted in Chinese his- 
tory. The behavior of himself and his nationals 
was such that the new comers were rightfully 
styled " foreign devils " — a term of opprobrium 
that is still applied to all foreigners. They rifled 
tombs, invaded temples, robbed, pirated, and acted 
upon the same lines as did Cortez in Mexico and 
Pizarro in Peru ; but unfortunately for them they 



106 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

soon found that they were dealing with a race that 
knew how to treat "Tartars," and the pirate 
Andrade was arrested, and beheaded at Peking by 
the order of the Emperor Chiaching. Four hun- 
dred years of commerce and intercourse with 
European nations have not been sufficient to correct 
the impression of foreigners that was obtained from 
these early Portuguese '* navigators." The career 
of Fernan Mendez Pinto richly merits the castiga- 
tion it received from the pens of Cervantes and 
Congreve. These Christian pirates virtually closed 
the door in China; and it has taken four centuries, 
with an expense of millions of treasure and 
thousands of lives to force it open ever so little. 
It certainly seems like a judgment that little 
Macao, with its shallow harbor, should represent 
all that Portugal realized from its vast primal 
opportunities. The Chinese empire was not ori- 
ginally a hermit nation. It was never a seafaring 
one; it had for centuries carried on free trade 
with all the nations that touched its frontiers, 
and would have welcomed the European trader 
and enriched him had he but come honestly, and 
respected the laws and customs he found. An 
empire of four hundred millions, trained in war, 
and inured to every form of military service, was 
no mark for a few shiploads of piratical adven- 



MACAO 107 

turers. The Chinese promptly punished them for 
their misdeeds ; and the Portuguese embassy of 
1520 was sent under custody from Peking to 
Canton, where Perez, its chief, was thrown into 
prison, and ultimately disappeared. The Portu- 
guese government did not resent this high-handed 
act, and as a result the numerous foreign embassies 
that humbly knocked at the gates of the " Pink 
City " were treated with contempt and cruelty. 

The Portuguese were permitted to exist on the 
rocky peninsula of Macao, much as a pariah dog is 
tolerated at the back-door. It was not until 1887 
that Macao was formally recognized as Portuguese 
territory by China, or more than forty years after 
the occupation of Hong Kong by the British. 
To-day the beautiful old city, which resembles a 
page out of the Spain of Columbus, is hardly 
more than a health resort for the busy merchants 
of the near-by British colony. The modern steamer 
cannot get within three miles of its picturesque 
roadstead, and the grotto of the poet Camoens 
and the fantan tables are of more profit than its 
custom-house. In all these centuries it has not 
added one acre of ground to its holdings, and the 
ancient wall across the narrow sandy isthmus still 
separates the vegetating civilization of Portugal 
from the vegetating civilization of China. 



108 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

It may be that there were good Portuguese in 
China besides the famous missionary Xavier and 
Michael Roger, but if so they suffered for the 
iniquities of their compatriots. It was not until 
the great Ricci, missionary, scholar, and clock- 
maker, arrived in 1582 that any foreigner was per- 
mitted to enter the walls of Peking. Spanish 
missionaries from Manila attempted without suc- 
cess to impress the Chinese with the falsity of their 
native religious belief ; but after one visit they gave 
the project up, and returned to their more congenial 
field. They found it quite a different thing to 
convert a nation by argument than to convert 
them at the point of the sword. They Avere 
unable to put into operation in China the revival 
methods practiced by the holy Catholic church 
in South America, Mexico, and the Philippine 
Islands. If we are to judge from results in com- 
paring the condition of the Chinese with the 
Filipinos of to-day it is perhaps fortunate that 
the Spanish missionaries did not obtain a foothold 
in the Celestial empire. If there be any choice I 
prefer an honest pagan to a lying Christian ; for it 
was not long before the Spanish in the Philippines 
gave the Chinese an object lesson that must have 
made them smile at the white man's creed of 
" Peace on earth, and good will towards men." 



THE MISSIONARIES, 109 

For no other reason save the Spanish fear 
that too many Chinese were settling in their 
ishinds, they ordered a general massacre of the 
unoffending settlers, and slaughtered over twenty 
thousand of them at one . time. It is little to be 
wondered at that in the face of the action of the 
so-styled Christian Spanish, and so-called Christian 
Portuguese in Malacca, that even the brilliant John 
Adam Schall, who was revered by the Ming- 
emperors for his astronomical learning, made little 
headway in enlisting converts. From 1628 to the 
day of his death in prison, 1666, Schall worked 
with untiring zeal for his faith, and never missed 
an opportunity to preach the word to all who 
would listen. " Why do you so much trouble 
yourselves," the Emperor Kangsi asked him, 
" about a world which you have never entered ? " 
and intimated that he had better devote his time 
to " making friends with the mammon of unright- 
eousness." Under the leadership of such men as 
Ricci and Schall the Catholics would have made 
some permanent progress had the different reli- 
gious bodies been content to work together for the 
general good ; but this seemed impossible. Jesuits 
and Dominicans quarreled openly, and spent their 
opportunities in undermining each other's efforts, 
until Kangsi seemed justified in asking them to 



110 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

make-up their own minds as to their own teachings 
before trying to become teachers. 

China has always been a favorite ground for 
missionary endeavor. Save at exceptional periods 
the perils of life and health are no greater 
in China than in other sections of the earth, 
while the pleasure and comfort of living is im- 
mensely superior to most parts of Africa, to 
the Western territories of the United States, or 
the frozen regions of the arctic. Missionaries 
of all denominations live in well-built houses, 
and are waited upon by native servants who 
are learning the English language. They take 
trips home every two or three years, at one- 
half the regular passenger rates, and manage to 
lay aside a little money. Their own children are 
often educated at the expense of their home 
societies, but the great difficulty to their progress 
has always been an inability to live contentedly 
with one another. They can make friends with 
the Chinese, but for members of two rival mis- 
sionary bodies to mix seems impossible. Even 
while writing this book I had a case reported to 
me from Swatow, where the quarrel between the 
Protestant American missionaries and the Chinese 
French missionaries had become so intense that 
we considered the advisability of sending a war- 



SCOUTS OF CIVILIZATION. Ill 

ship to Swatow and asking Minister Conger 
to lay the case before the Tsung li Yumen, 
or foreign office of China. When the missionary, 
like Ricci, devotes himself to translating works 
on Western science into Chinese, or like Schall 
rearranges the Imperial Calendar, and instructs 
the literati in the use of geometrical and 
astronomical instruments, or like the modern 
medical missionary sets a leg or preaches 
sanitary law, then the missionary soon makes 
a place for himself, and the amount of good 
he can do is only limited by his ability for 
hard labor. Such men are the scouts of civiliza- 
tion, the " drummers " of commerce, and deserve 
every encouragement and help ; but there is a 
class of missionary that spoils the field, and brings 
contempt upon the nation sending them forth to 
Christianize. They are forever quarreling with 
the Chinese, thinking more of standing on " treaty 
rights " than of obtaining the good- will of the 
people about them, insisting on erecting a 
chapel on ground that is sacred to some 
ancestral temple, trampling upon old customs, 
appealing for protection, and sending up, through 
missionary journals, long wails over their trials 
and hardships. Every American and British con- 
sul in China can supply dozens of cases on both 



112 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

sides of the shield to verify my experience, but 
we have long since found that it is useless to 
publish them. We can only hope that the de- 
voted labors of the many earnest men will tri- 
umph in the end, and that Christianity will be a 
mighty factor in settling the vexed Chinese ques- 
tion. 

In 1566 Chiaching became a guest on high in 
spite of his vain attempt to obtain immortality by 
means of elixirs and Taoist charms. His life had 
not been so agreeable that one would think he 
would have wished to perpetuate it. His reign 
of forty-five years was filled with domestic out- 
breaks and wars with the Mongols and Japanese, 
the latter of whom at one time were so successful 
that they held Ningpo, Shanghai, and Soochow. 
Although Chiaching effectually defeated the 
Japanese in 1563, neither he nor his successors 
were able to free the coast from their periodical 
visitations ; and in 1592 a force under the com- 
mand of the famous leader and subsequent Sho- 
gun Hideyoshi invaded Korea and captured Seoul. 
In spite of their successes they were not destined 
to obtain any firm foothold on the continent, and 
retired to their islands much as they did in 1894, 
for diplomatic reasons. In fact, there are many 
acts and movements in the Japanese invasion of 



THE LAST OF THE MINGS. 113 

Korea in 1592 that closely resemble their descent 
three hundred years later. 

The reigns of the last three Ming sovereigns, 
from 1573 to 1644, were mainly taken up with 
their combats with the rising Manchu tribes. It 
was during this period that the Dutch made their 
appearance by way of Formosa. They took pos- 
session of the Pescadores, and landed at Amoy, 
from whence they penetrated as far as Chang 
Chow and Halting. The Dutch at the time were 
at war with both the Spanish and Portuguese ; 
their trading-ships went heavily armed, and sailed 
as much for prizes as for trade. They defeated 
the Portuguese armament, captured Malacca and 
the Spice Islands, and in 1622 made an attack on 
Macao. Being repulsed, with the loss of their 
admiral, they returned to the Pescadores in a 
frame of mind that led easily to a quarrel with 
the Chinese ; and in the engagements that subse- 
quently took place on the mainland, they were 
invariably worsted, and eventually compelled to 
retreat to Formosa. Like their predecessors the 
Portuguese, they left a bad impression on the 
Chinese mind, and by their rapacity and cruelty 
missed an opportunity of making Holland a world 
power. 

In 1596 Queen Elizabeth dispatched a small 



114 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

fleet under Benjamin Wood, with letters to the 
emperor of China, but they never reached their 
destination; and not another attempt was made 
until 1637, when Captain Weddell succeeded in 
reaching Macao. The expedition, however, came 
to nothing through the jealousy of the Portuguese 
and the Jesuit missionaries, who egged on the 
Chinese to drive the English ship from the coast. 
The Chinese fired without warning, and were well 
punished by the sturdy old mariner ; but although 
the Chinese were compelled to permit Weddell to 
purchase full cargoes for his squadron, the out- 
look was not promising ; and this fact, combined 
with the great hazards to shipping, because of 
the civil wars in England and the war with 
Holland, stopped all commercial ventures for a 
quarter of a century. 



THE MANCHU BTNASTT. 115 



VL 



THE RISE OF THE MANCHU 
DTNASTT. 

[A. D. 1676-1722.] 

CHINA has never for a moment, in its long 
and eventful history, lost its individuality. 
The so-called conquest of the empire by 
Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus proved in the end 
to be little more than a forced infusion of new 
blood into the old and worn-out life. The Man- 
chus, like the Mongols, the Kins, and the Khitans, 
came from the north. China's great walls are on 
the northern frontier, and all her great battles 
have been fought on the line between the empire 
as it exists to-day and Manchurian Siberia. The 
bones of countless armies lie on both sides of this 
shifting line ; and the Great Wall might stand as 
the most gigantic gravestone in history. China 
has never been successfully invaded from the 
south. Russia is to-day in the north, France on 
the southern frontier. Russia is advancing on the 
line of Kublai Khan and Nurhachu, and who will 



116 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

dare to predict what the next few years will 
develop ? 

Nurhachu was the Kublai Khan of the new 
power which to-day rules the destinies of the 
empire. Like Kublai he welded into a centralized 
power all the scattered tribes of his race who 
covered the territories from the Great Wall to the 
Amoor, but unlike Kublai he himself never sat on 
the coveted throne. His ambition probably would 
have been satisfied with the recognized leadership 
of his own people, had not the Chinese emperor, 
Wanli, interfered by supporting a rival chief. 
His first engagement with the dreaded imperial 
troops taught him the superiority of his own 
veterans, and aroused him to the fullness of his 
own genius. He boldly entered the Liaotung 
peninsula, and signally defeated an army of a 
hundred thousand. After successfully crushing 
one army after another he made Moukden his 
capital, where he died the following year, 1626, 
in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 

So far the rise of the Manchus had been much 
like the rise of the Mongols, — a small army of 
veterans, led by a soldier of ability with a clearly 
defined object, was advancing with unerring step 
through a half-hearted, badly organized, and poorly 
commanded mob. The Chinese emperor seemed 



INTRODUCTION OF THE ^UEUE. 117 

to feel that fate was crowding him ; and when the 
Portuguese envoy from Macao offered to come to 
his rescue with two hundred arquebusiers, he 
gladly accepted the loan. The two hundred men 
who were to succor an army of two hundred thou- 
sand marched across the empire from Macao to 
Peking, and were there told by Wanli, who had 
for the moment recovered from his " funk," that 
they might leave their guns and return, which 
they did at their own expense, and without a 
thank you. One cannot but speculate as to what 
would have been the result had Texeira's little 
force been allowed to go to the front. It was not 
until two centuries later that China again ac- 
cepted the loan of a foreign force to save the 
royal descendants of Nurhachu from the rebel- 
lious Taipings. Chinese historians incidentally 
note that it was the custom of the Chinese in- 
habitants of conquered ■cities to shave their heads 
in token of submission to their new masters. 
This is the first mention of the now universal 
custom of the wearing of the queue by the 

Chinese. 

Nurhachu was succeeded by his fourth son, 
Tientsung, who at once undertook the conquest of 
Korea, and in 1629, at the head of over a hundred 
thousand men, began the victorious march into 



118 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

China, which ended disastrously before the very 
walls of Peking. The last of the Mings, Chwang 
Lich Ti, was, however, fated, although he did sur- 
vive the Manchu chief, Tientsung, and compelled 
him to retire into Mongolia. Two formidable re- 
bellions, headed by two powerful leaders, Li and 
Chang, were distracting the provinces. Li practi- 
cally reduced the great states of Shensi, Shansi, 
and Honam, and felt himself of enough importance 
in 1644 to proclaim himself emperor of China, 
and organize a government. From Tung Wan, Li 
marched on Peking, capturing all the important 
cities on the way. The emperor made no deter- 
mined stand ; and after a feeble attempt to escape 
he hanged himself by his own girdle to a tree, 
leaving behind a pathetic note : " My virtue is 
small, and therefore I have incurred the anger of 
heaven, and so the rebels have captured my 
capital. Let them disfigure my corpse, but don't 
let them kill one of my people." The tree on 
which he hanged himself was afterwards loaded 
with chains in token of the crime it had com- 
mitted in being instrumental to the death of a 
son of heaven. 

Among the court officials who hastened to pay 
their homage to the usurper was Wu, the father 
of the celebrated imperial general, Wu Sankwei, 



THE BEAUTIFUL SLAVE GIRL. 119 

who commanded the impregnable fortress of Ning- 
yuen, which had defied the power of all the armies 
of the Manchus, and had saved Peking from both 
Nurhachu and Tientsung. The son Wu, with an 
army of veterans, was on his way to the capital 
when Peking fell, when he received a letter from 
his father urging him to submit to Li. Sankwei 
was on the point of obeying his father's com- 
mands, and about to tender his allegiance to Li, 
when he heard that a beautiful slave-girl belonging 
to him had been seized, and presented to one of Li's 
officers. Sankwei loved the girl ; and in his love 
he forgot filial obedience, his own future, and the 
safety of his family. This slave-girl, who is his- 
torically nameless, gave the present dynasty its 
throne. But for her the Manchus would have 
remained to this day a league of scattered tribes 
of malcontents on the frontier of China. Sank- 
wei never saw her again; but he burned on her 
grave a dynasty, a city, and gave a vast empire to 
a small body of foreigners. The queue that every 
Chinaman wears might justly be claimed as a 
badge of mourning for the beautiful slave-girl of 
the general, Sankwei. In his grief and anger he 
wrote two letters that sealed the fate of Li and 
of Chinese nationality — one upbraiding his father 
for not protecting his mistress, the other to Dor- 



120 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

gun, the Manchu regent, inviting him to join him 
in the subjugation of the empire. The Manchus 
did not hesitate, but pushed their army forward 
by forced marches to a junction with Sankwei. Li, 
astonished at the turn of affairs, and determined 
to crush the man who dared dispute his title, 
advanced rapidly with tAvo hundred thousand 
picked infantry and twenty thousand cavalry. In 
the front line he marched the aged father of Sank- 
wei, who by all decrees of Confucius, Sankwei 
was bound to obey, even to the sacrifice of his 
own life and honor. The father not only ordered, 
but pleaded with him to submit ; but the vision of 
the outraged girl steeled the heart of his son, and 
he stood helpless while his father was murdered 
before his eyes. The battle that followed was 
one of the most fiercely contested as well as one 
of the most noted in history. Sankwei was out- 
matched and outnumbered, but not outgeneraled. 
He fought with his troops like the very spirit of 
the fearful storm that raged during the battle ; 
but in spite of his terrific charges he would have 
been compelled to confess defeat, had not the 
Manchu advance guard of twenty thousand vet- 
eran cavalry thrown themselves into the breach 
with a rush that was irresistible. The fight, 
which commenced as a duel, ended in a slaughter. 



SANKWEFS REVENGE. 121 

For fourteen miles Sankwei pursued the usurper's 
disorganized forces, and butchered them by the 
hundreds. Li stayed in Peking long enough to 
strip the palace of its treasures, and to merci- 
lessly execute all the family of Wu, and set fire 
to the government buildings. Sankwei, however, 
was close on his heels. He left the empire to the 
Manchus, the sacking of the city to the troops, 
and the bodies of liis family unburied ; but he 
swept on, tireless, remorseless, bent solely on re- 
venge. His mistress was dead, his father mur- 
dered, his family obliterated, but Li still lived. 
Battle succeeded battle. Li, deserted by liis fol- 
lowers, hunted like a mad dog, with all doors 
shut to him, and even the necessities of life be- 
coming impossible, was killed by the rustics whom 
he was plundering for food ; and Sankwei arrived 
only to claim the corpse of the rebel and murderer 
who for a few hours had dared to sit on the 
sacred dragon throne. 

Leaving Sankwei to avenge the death of his 
mistress, Dorgun entered Peking, in January, 
1644. He proclaimed his youthful charge emperor, 
and issued a proclamation to the people assuring 
them that he had come to deliver them, and that 
they might return to their daily avocations in 
peace. He did not, however, offer to restore the 



122 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

throne to its rightful owners, the Mings, but sent 
post haste for his six-year-old nephew, and for- 
mally transferred the Manchu capital from Mouk- 
den to Peking. The young lord, who adopted 
the title of Shunchih, arrived in October, and 
with his advent the Manchu or Tsing dynasty 
came into being. 

Shunchih reigned eighteen years (1644 to 1662), 
during which time he completely crushed the 
Mings, and was able to hand his throne over to 
his successor, free from all incumbrances and 
claimants. His first act was to dismiss the eu- 
nuchs from all posts of honor, and debar them for 
all time from participating in affairs of state. 
While the official class and the common people 
about Peking accepted Manchu rule gladly, the 
southern districts of the empire remained true to 
the legitimate, if dissolute, Mings. Fu Wang, an 
ignorant, drunken grandson of Wanli, was pro- 
claimed emperor at Nanking, and Shih Kofa, a 
man of incorruptible virtue and great influence, 
undertook the hopeless task of winning back his 
throne for him. Dorgun first tried to open nego- 
tiations, with this grand old man. He pointed out 
the impossibility of ever reinstating the worn-out 
Mings in the affection of the people, and offered 
amnesty to all, and great honors to Shih, if he 



THE MANCHU CONQUEST. 123 

would give up the struggle. But it was all in 
vain, and the. regent ordered his armies to advance. 
The Manchus were uniformly successful; city 
after city fell, the brave Shih lost his life at the 
fall of Hangchow, and within a year from the 
commencement of hostilities Nanking was in their 
power, and Fu Wang was a prisoner. It need 
hardly be recorded that Fu Wang was not long 
called upon to endure this disgrace. He was exe- 
cuted with the usual neatness and dispatch. Fu 
Wang's successor had the pleasure of being called 
emperor for three days, during which time he dis- 
tinguished himself by opening the gates of Hang 
Chow to the enemy. Tang Wang, a descendant 
of Hung Wu, in the ninth generation, next at- 
tempted the imperial role without success ; and 
after losing Ningpo, Shanghai, Wenchow, and 
Taichow, he fell into the hands of the conquerors 
with the usual unpleasant result. 

Probably the most famous character of this 
period was Koxinga, variously styled pirate, pa- 
triot, admiral, and king. On the ascension of 
Kwei Wang to the so-called throne, Koxinga, who 
was in command of the fleets as well as sole pro- 
prietor, became the main hope of the falling cause. 
Koxinga was the son of Admiral Chang, whose 
career made a fitting prelude to the more remark- 



124 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

able one of his son. Chang was a native of 
Fuhkin, and in early life professed Christianity 
to the Catholic missionaries. He was sent to 
Macao, and from there went to Manila, and later 
to Japan, in which last clime he married a Japan- 
ese. Koxinga was the fruit of this union. Chang's 
next move was not exactly in hne with his reli- 
gious training. He induced a relative of his wife 
to intrust him with a rich cargo for the Chinese 
market. The proceeds of the sale of this ship and 
cargo, which he promptly appropriated, enabled 
Chang to fit out a fleet of piratical junks. By 
Bkillful management he amassed a colossal fortune, 
and became such a power that the Emperor Shun- 
chih conferred on him the rank of admiral, and 
kept him an honored but unwilling guest at Pe- 
king. The son, Koxinga, declined with thanks 
the emperor's invitation to join his father in his 
gilded cage, and assuming command of the fleet, 
which had grown to over a thousand war-junks, 
repaired to the Pescadores and espoused the Ming 
cause. He was, however, as expensive an ally 
as he was a troublesome enemy. The Manchus 
could not meet him on the sea, and never knew 
when he was going to strike on the coast. Shun- 
chih gave up the attempt to guard his great coast- 
line, and issued an edict commanding the natives 



CHINA'S NEGATIVE POLICY, 125 

of the littoral provinces to retire four leagues in- 
land. The order was carried out to the letter, 
although it turned fishermen into agriculturists, 
and changed the diet of several millions of people- 
It furnishes a curious example of China's historic 
negative policy. 

The cause of the Mings under the leadership of 
Kwei Wang prospered for a time, and Canton fell 
into his hands; but his successes were only momen- 
tary, as the relentless Wu Sankwei never for a mo- 
ment gave him a breathing-spell. After a series 
of hard-fought battles the Ming was driven through 
the provinces of Kw^eichow and Yunnan, and was 
forced to beg the protection of the Idng of Bur- 
mah. Had it not been for the murdered slave- 
girl he would have been permitted to remain 
there; but Sankwei paid no attention to his pa- 
thetic letter, reminding him of the honors he had 
received from the last of the Ming emperors, and 
begging for his life, but demanded from the king 
of Burmah his immediate surrender. The king 
was easily terrified by the famous general, and 
handed over the prince and his entire family. 
Despairing of his life, Kwei Wang strangled him- 
self with a silken cord, in May, 1652, thereby 
once again cheating Sankwei of his vengeance. 

In 1656 the Russian Emperor Alexis, the 



126 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

father of Peter the Great, sent an embassy to 
China, with a view to establishing commercial rela- 
tions. The Russians, however, were not prepared 
" to do in Rome as the Romans do," and positively 
refused to perform the kotow before the Manchu 
emperor, a ceremony which is the equivalent to an 
acknowledgment of vassalage, and consists in 
making nine prostrations, touching the ground 
each time with the forehead. The Russians were 
dismissed. Shortly after the Dutch sent a similar 
embassy. Profiting by the example of the Rus- 
sians, the Dutch submitted to whatever was re- 
quired. The Chinese emperors hold their levees 
at daybreak; and the ambassadors were huddled 
into a cold outer apartment in their court dresses, 
and forced to rub shoulders throughout the night 
with the tributary envoy of a prince of the south- 
ern Tartars, in a long crimson sheepskin coat, 
great boots, bare arms, and cap surmounted with 
a horse-tail ; with an ambassador of a Mongol 
khan in a blue dress covered with embroidery ; a 
representative of the Grand Lama, in yellow robe, 
cardinal's hat and beads ; a Korean and a Bur- 
mese. The Dutch made the kotow with the rest, 
and delivered their presents. In payment for 
their debasement they received a letter from the 
emperor, which read : " You have asked leave to 



KANGHSI AND KOXINGA. 127 

come to trade in my country; but as your country 
is so far distant, and the winds on the east coast 
so boisterous and so dangerous to your ships, if 
you do think fit to send hither, I desire that it 
may be bat once every eight years, and no more 
than one hundred men in a company, twenty of 
whom may come up to the place where I keep my 
court." 

Shunchih died a natural death, and was suc- 
ceeded by his second son, Kanghsi, one of the 
greatest of Chinese monarchs. He was eight 
years old when he ascended the throne ; and the 
first problem that confronted him was the suppres- 
sion of the pirate king, Koxinga. In 1663 a 
combined naval attack of Chinese and Dutch had 
made untenable Amoy, his last stronghold on the 
mainland; so Koxinga embarked an army of 
twenty thousand soldiers, and sailed for Formosa, 
where he was joined by large numbers of Ming 
emigres. He demanded the surrender of the 
Dutch forts. A series of desperate battles fol- 
lowed, in which the Dutch were worsted, and 
compelled to retire to their colonies in Java. 
Koxinga assumed the sovereignty, and was recog- 
nized by Europeans as king of Formosa. He was 
not content, however, to reign quietly, but kept 
up his descents on the maritime provinces of 



128 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

China, an finally, irritated by the conduct of his 
son, he became mad and died, at the age of thirty- 
eight, from self-inflicted injuries. His demise 
closed the career of the premier pirate of all his- 
tory. He was succeeded by his unfilial son, 
Ching Chin, who continued his father's policy of 
ravaging the coast. The Chinese fully realized 
that they were no match for the veteran pirate, 
and gave up the struggle when they deserted the 
coasi>line. On the other hand, the pirates were 
never able to maintain an equal fight on land. 
Formosa is an extremely fertile island, and had 
Ching Chin's followers been willing to become 
agriculturists, the line of Koxinga might have 
become the recognized reigning house ; but 
unable to resist a call to arms which promised 
plunder, the Formosan king threw in his lot with 
the famous general and prince, Wu Sankwei, in a 
rebellion that might have wrecked the Manchu 
dynasty had Sankwei lived to direct it. Right- 
fully or wrongfully, Kanghsi did not feel secure 
on the throne that Sankwei had won for his father, 
so long as that veteran general had such tremen- 
dous power in the empire. He was the prince 
viceroy of the great provinces of Kweichow and 
Yunnan, besides possessing the prestige of being 
the most able general in Chinese history. Broad- 



SANKWEVS DEFIANCE, 129 

minded and generous as was the emperor, it 
may have been impossible for his Chinese mind 
to free itself of the suspicion that he would never 
be first in the eyes of his subjects while Sankwei 
lived. Kano^hsi first asked for a son of Sankwei 
to reside in court. This request was instantly 
complied with. Next, the emperor invited the 
prince to present himself at the capital. Sankwei 
diplomatically pleaded old age, and begged the 
emperor to accept his compliments and excuse. 
The emperor foolishly pressed the point, and or- 
dered a commission to report on the condition of 
Sankwei's health. The martial spirit of the old 
lion was aroused at the insult ; and he turned on 
the commission : " Tell your master, whom I made 
emperor, that I will come to Peking, but it will be 
at the head of eighty thousand veterans." Sank- 
wei knew how to strike, and to strike hard. He 
organized his viceroyalty into a separate state, and 
in 1674 all of Southern China fell an easy prey to 
his superb military genius. Kanghsi realized his 
mistake, and tried to open negotiations ; but, un- 
fortunately, in the meantime Sankwei's son at 
Peking had been beheaded by imperial order, and 
the stern old general scorned his advances. How- 
ever, the emperor was a foeman worthy of Sank- 
wei's steel ; and although, like Napoleon, Sankwei 



130 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

was always victorious when he led in person, the 
Manchu forces were able to hold his generals in 
check, and the Formosan king was unable to make 
any headway on land. Still, it was not until the 
death of Sankwei, from paralysis, in October, 1678, 
that the Manchu dynasty could feel that it was 
finally in possession of the empire. For three years 
more the fighting continued, but it was ineffective. 
Kanghsi tarnished his fame by having the body 
of Sankwei disinterred, and his bones scattered 
through the provinces, and by issuing a decree 
debarring forever his descendants from entering 
literary examinations or becoming mandarins. 
Kanghsi missed the great opportunity of his reign 
to ennoble his name forevermore, by erecting a 
temple of honor to the grand old general and to 
the dead slave-girl who had placed his family on 
the throne. 

With the suppression of the rebellion Kanghsi 
decided to crush the Formosan pirates, so called, 
who, during the rebelHon, had possessed themselves 
of the cities of Amoy and Halting. A force of 
thirty thousand men and three hundred ships dis- 
lodged Ching Chin, and compelled him to retire 
once more to his island capital, where he died six 
months later. In July, 1683, the Chinese fleet 
set out for Formosa, and the fate of the buccaneer 



TOLERANCE TO MISSIONARIES. 131 

kingdom was decided in a desperate two days' 
land and naval battle. The Manchus were suc- 
cessful ; and although Koshwang, the Formosan 
king, might have held out indefinitely, and have 
tired the invaders out by carrying on a guerilla 
warfare, he preferred the title of duke and a life 
pension with a residence in Peking to a precarious 
existence in the mountains. Thus ended the 
record of the greatest and most successful purely 
piratical adventure in history, with the possible 
exceptions of the Cortez expedition in Mexico and 
that of Pizarro in Peru. Its fate is an example 
of the impossibility of building up an independent, 
self-respecting nation from its criminal classes. 

The missionaries played a rather important role 
during the long reign of Kanghsi. The emperor, 
personally, had a perfect contempt for all reli- 
gions ; but he was absolutely tolerant, and in spite 
of the opposition of his officials he permitted 
freedom of worship, but forbade proselyting. 
"As we do not restrain the lamas of Tartary," 
he said, " or the bonzes of China, from building 
temples and burning incense, we cannot refuse 
these having their own churches, and publicly 
teaching their religion, especially as nothing has 
been alleged against it as contrary to law. Were 
we not to do this, we should contradict ourselves. 



132 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

We hold, therefore, that they may biiild temples 
to the Lord of Heaven, and maintain them wher- 
ever they will; and that those who honor them 
may freely resort to them to burn incense and to 
observe the rites usual to Christianity." Pere 
Verbiest, a Dutch priest, who was famous for his 
scientific and philosophic learning, was employed 
to revise the Chinese calendar, and discovered 
that it was an entire month too fast. He was 
made president of the Astronomical Board, while 
two Jesuit missionaries, Gerbillon and Pereira, 
stood equally as high in the emperor's confidence, 
and in 1689 had the honor of concluding China's 
first treaty with a European power. They might 
have done their religion a vast amount of future 
good had they been more careful of the treatment 
of the corrupt officialdom around them ; but they 
believed that it was their mission to expose fraud 
in high places as well as low ; and in the end they 
made so many powerful enemies that the mis- 
sionaries who followed them, and who w^ere not 
great savants, were made to suffer for their im- 
politic acts. It was also unfortunate that the 
different Catholic orders could not live in harmony 
with each other. They quarreled so fiercely over 
the proper Chinese character for the name of God, 
that the viceroy of Canton, in 1716, petitioned 



CHINESE CANNONS. 133 

the emperor that he might be empowered to forbid 
them to live in his province. The story of the 
disputes of the rival orders is very interesting 
from a scholastic point of view, but they were 
responsible for the almost utter wreck of the 
Roman Catholic missions in China. 

The invasion of Galdan, the chief of the 
Eleuths, a Kalmuck tribe, with a formidable force, 
determined Kanghsi to settle forever the status of 
his troublesome neighbors beyond the great wall ; 
and the larger part of the years from 1680 to his 
death in 1723 were filled with battles with these 
hardy adventurers. Galdan, the greatest of the 
Central Asian leaders, was eventually driven to 
suicide ; and his successor, Tseh Wang Putan, 
who was made chief by Kanghsi, was afterwards 
dethroned, with the loss of all his territory. It 
was in these sanguinary wars that cannon first 
came into use, and they were quite as effective 
against the wild fighters of Tartary as they after- 
wards became against the savage warriors of North 
America. 

Kanghsi died near the close of 1722, of a cold 
contracted while hunting. He had reigned sixty- 
one years, and he left a name in Chinese history 
that ranks him alongside of the great Yau and 
Shun. He was a man of great natural ability, a 



134 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

wise ruler, and a distinguished scholar. His dic- 
tionary is still the standard one of China, and his 
" Sixteen Maxims " is part of the course of study- 
in every Chinese school. During his reign a 
regular trade in tea sprang up, and in 1699 a 
factory was established in Canton. In 1703, over 
one hundred thousand pounds of tea were ex- 
ported from Canton, and in 1715 the trade had 
become so well established that a regular line of 
British tea-ships was placed in commission. Quite 
a foreign settlement sprang up on 'the Honan side 
of Canton, and large fortunes were made, in spite 
of the jealousy and persecution of the Chinese 
officials. The little colony complained bitterly of 
its precarious situation and the humiliations it had 
to stand ; but as long as the trade was so lucrative 
the European nations temporized with the Chinese 
rather than risk the possible breaking off of com- 
mercial relations. In the end, however, commerce 
had to pay dearly for its early weakness and 
timidity. 

Yungching, the fourth son of Kanghsi, suc- 
ceeded to the throne. His rule of fourteen years 
was uneventful, save for the usual number of 
rebellions and the annual picnic excursions of the 
Tartars into the northern provinces. The quar- 
reling Catholic missionaries were formally banished 



A DIPLOMATIC TRIUMPH, 135 

from the empire, and more than three hundred 
churches were destroyed. In 1727 Portugal sent 
an envoy to Peking, which, as usual, resulted in 
nothing. The same year a Russian embassy was 
more successful, in so far as they obtained per- 
mission for a number of their young men to reside 
in Peking to study the language, and that Count 
Sava managed to place his credentials directly in 
the august hands of the emperor rather than on 
the table before the throne. At the time this was 
considered a great diplomatic triumph; and as 
petty as it may seem, it may be looked upon as 
one of the steps that led to China's eventual recog- 
nition of the equality of all nations. The last 
step in this whimsical procession towards the 
throne was taken last year by Prince Henry of 
Prussia, when his personal call on the Emperor 
of China was returned in person by the Son of 
Heaven. 



136 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 



VII. 

FROM CHI EN LUNG TO HIENFUNG. 

[A.D. 1735-A.D. 1851.] 

WHEN Chien Lung ascended the throne 
in 1735 at the age of twenty-five, he 
made a public vow that, " should he, 
like his illustrious grandfather Kanghsi, be per- 
mitted to complete the sixtieth year of his reign, 
he would show his gratitude to Heaven by resign- 
ing the crown to his heir, as an acknowledgment 
that he had been favored to the full extent of his 
wishes." Not one person who was present at the 
Hall of Imperial Ancestors when the vow was 
made, lived to see it fulfilled ; but it was thus 
kept to the very hour and minute, and it is the 
only example in Chinese history where a monarch 
voluntarily laid down the royal yellow. 

It was not in longevity alone that Chien Lung 
resembled his great sire. He was a strong char- 
acter, a great ruler, and a patron of education. 
His reign was disturbed with rebellions and foreign 



RETURN OF THE TOURGOTS, 137 

wars ; but the rebellions were not aimed at his 
administration, and the wars with Nepal, Burma, 
and Turkestan were not of his seeking, although 
he never turned aside when once engaged until he 
was indisputably master of the field. He was 
harsh with the Catholics, but, as he said, no more 
so than the Catholics would be with the mission- 
aries of the Grand Lama of Thibet, should he 
send them to Europe to proselyte and stir up 
strife. His court and table were always open to 
missionaries of ability ; and Jesuits like Castiglione 
and Attiret, who were artists and skilled workers, 
were treated with the greatest distinction. One 
of the most remarkable and romantic incidents of 
his long reign was the return of the self-exiled 
tribe of Tourgots from the steppes of the Kirghez 
in Russia, where they had fled to be free from 
early Mongol invasion. The return of this tribe 
of six hundred thousand people to their father- 
land in 1772 is a most thrilling story, as told by 
De Quincey in his " The Flight of a Tartar 
Tribe." 

In his war with the Gurkhas of Nepal, it seems 
that the British in India made a demonstration 
that very much aided and gratified the Chinese, 
and the British Government thought this a good 
time to try to obtain some concessions that would 



138 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

relieve the deplorable situation at Canton. Lord 
Macartney, late governor of Madras, at the head 
of an imposing suite, and carrying an entire ship- 
load of presents, arrived at Canton in 1793. He 
was received by the Chinese with the greatest dis- 
tinction, and by the governors of all the cities on 
his way to Peking. His reception at the capital 
and at the emperor's summer palace at Jehol was 
most flattering ; although the fact that the flag on 
the vessel on which he voyaged up the Peiho bore 
the legend, " Tribute-Bearer from the country of 
England," marred the joy of the occasion. 

All English histories of China devote more 
space to a narrative of the account of this mission 
than they do to the rest of the sixty years' reign 
of Chien Lung ; but other than being a most gor- 
geous picnic excursion for Macartney, and a vast 
expense to the English government, not one single 
thing was gained, commercially or diplomatically. 
Macartney was dismissed with sweetly bland con- 
tempt, and his vast array of presents were ac- 
cepted in the same spirit that Chinese emperors 
had been accepting presents from tributary states 
since the days of Shun and Yau. Europe was 
still valuing China at its own estimate ; and it is 
curious how small an excuse in the beginning of 
1800 would lead to war in Europe, and yet what 



A GREAT EMPIRE, 139 

gross insults the same nations would submit to 
from this haughty Asiatic empire. 

In 1796 Chien Lung abdicated on his diamond 
anniversary, although he had three years yet to 
live, long enough to discover that he had made a 
great mistake in his estimate of the character of 
his son and successor, Chiaching. For the first 
time in Chinese history an emperor was able to 
turn over to his successor an empire that was at 
absolute peace, although its boundaries extended 
from the northern steppes of Mongolia to Cochin 
China, and from Formosa to Nepal. 

It is a wise father that knows his own son, and 
Chiaching was not long in demonstrating this 
axiom. He evidently believed that the Tsing 
dynasty had made such a reputation for ability and 
virtue during the reign of its three sovereigns 
that it would permit him to enjoy life with per- 
fect safety and as he saw fit. He surrounded him- 
self with actors, bon vivants, and flatterers, and 
throwing all questions of ceremonial etiquette to 
the winds, made wine, women and song, the con- 
trolling influences of his court. His orgies did 
not rival those of many of his predecessors in 
magnificence or costly outlay ; but he was always 
the buffoon, and never the king, and he even car- 
ried his comedians with him when he offered 



140 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

sacrifices at the temples of heaven and earth. 
Sung, one of his ministers, dared to point out to 
his royal master the disastrous effect it would 
have upon the nation if its high priest made 
sport of the holy of holies. The only impression 
this reproof made was a peremptory summons for 
Sung to appear in court, and state what punish- 
ment he deserved. "A slow and ignominious 
death," which meant quartering, replied the stout- 
hearted old statesman, who evidently thought that 
as long as he must die, he might as well ask 
for the worst. " Choose again," thundered the 
astonished emperor. " Let me be beheaded," 
was the answer. Chiaching paused for a moment 
in deep thought, and a third time put the ques- 
tion. This time Sung's face beamed with joy, for 
he believed that he was to be permitted to die an 
honorable death ; and he almost shouted in his 
relief, " Let me be strangled." Immediately the 
emperor dismissed the brave courtier, and made 
him governor of the province of Hi, or Chinese 
Siberia, where he could exercise his great talents 
in battlino- with the frontier marauders rather than 
with the emperor's shortcomings. 

It is sad to chronicle that Sung's reproof had 
no effect. With such a state of affairs in court, it 
is little wonder that rebellion and insurrection 



THE PIRATE INVASION, 141 

sprang up throughout the empire. China has 
always been a fertile soil for the growth of secret 
societies. Their object is primarily purely philan- 
thropic ; but in a time like the present reign, when 
the official class was given free license to squeeze 
the people, they became a theater for ambitious 
schemers and the base for a revolution. 

The insurrection of the White Lily sect swept 
the provinces of Honan, Shensi, Kansu, and Sze- 
chuan, costing thousands of lives, the greatest suf- 
fering, and an outlay of over a hundred million 
taels. Naturally piracy took advantage of this 
season of terror and the weakness of the central 
government, to scour the seas, and ravage the coast- 
towns. At one time their force was estimated at 
seventy thousand men, with eighteen hundred 
junks ; and their chief, Chai, made for himself a 
name almost as terrible as that of the great 
Koxinga. The imperial navy was so helpless that 
the emperor had to petition the despised English 
in Canton to send the war-ship *' Mercury " to 
safeguard the transport of the Siamese tribute 
from Bangkok to the imperial coffers. The 
European tea-ships gained nothing, however, by 
this action, and not only had to protect them- 
selves from the pirates, but had to submit to all 
the petty exactions of the imperial guard-ships. 



142 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

In 1802 the English occupied Macao to protect 
it from seizure by the French; and again in 1808 
Admiral Drury landed a force to assist the Portu- 
guese in case the French made the threatened de- 
scent; and yet in spite of the obligations which 
both the Chinese and the Portuguese willingly 
placed themselves under to the English, both na- 
tions vehemently protested and threatened when 
H. M. S. " Doris " brought in 1814 the American 
sailing-ship '' Hunter " into Macao as a prize. The 
Chinese even threatened to shut up the port of 
Macao to foreign trade unless the English took 
their men-of-war off the coast. 

The Russians were no more fortunate in their 
attempts to open a door into China. In 1805 a 
Russian embassy reached the great wall, when 
they were informed that they might save them- 
selves the trouble of journeying farther unless 
they intended to do the kotow. Count Goloyken 
declined, and immediately retraced his long and 
toilsome journey. In 1816 George the Third, not 
satisfied with the result of the Macartney picnic, 
decided to try once more, and dispatched Lord 
Amherst at the head of another one. Immediately 
on the arrival of Amherst the question of " to 
kotow, or not to kotow " was raised ; and as 
Amherst was firm in his refusal, he also had to 



SUFINENESS OF ENGLAND, 143 

turn back without gazing on the countenance of 
the Son of Heaven. As England did not resent 
the failure of the Macartney expedition, the Chi- 
nese did not think it worth while to be even polite 
to Amherst; and as the historian of the expedi- 
tion puts it, the embassy was treated with " brutal 
rudeness and insulting demeanor." When it is re- 
membered that England at this time had won the 
battle of Waterloo, and was mistress of the seas, 
one cannot but wonder at her supineness in deal- 
ing with the licentious Peking court. Chiaching 
died in 1820, at the age of sixty-one, mourned by 
none, and execrated by all. It is remarkable that 
the consequences of his reign were not more 
serious, and that more sanguinary outbreaks did 
not occur, as the imperial power was little stronger 
than that of one of the great viceroys. 

The one natural human act of Chiaching's career 
was his choice of his own son, Taokwang, as his 
successor. The choice was in the nature of a 
reward. In 1813 the palace was invaded by a 
band of armed men bent on the assassination of 
the emperor. The attempt would have been suc- 
cessful but for young Taokwang, who sprang to 
his father's rescue, and in a hand-to-hand fight 
killed two of the leaders, while a relative shot a 
third. The emperor thus describes the affair: 



144 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

** My imperial second son seized a matchlock, and 
shot two of them. For this deliverance I am 
indebted to the energies of my second son." 

In one particular the reign is famous in China's 
long history, as during it the official class learned 
more surprising tilings than are found in the phi- 
losophy of Confucius. It was an iconoclastic era, 
in which the most revered idols were ruthlessly 
broken by the despised " outer barbarian." To 
the horror of the " Son of Heaven" he discovered 
that the sons of earth not only dared to dispute 
his preeminence on this globe, but were prepared 
to assert their equality. The hermit nation was 
forced into the world, and the " tributary nation " 
fiction and the kotow bugbear were swept into 
limbo without regard to their hoary antiquity or 
eminent respectability. The outer barbarian 
proved to be a veritable bull in a China shop. 
Taokwang went on to the dread throne of the cen- 
turies, actually believing himself to be the king of 
kings, and the most awe-inspiring object on earth ; 
he died a much wiser but sadder man, with his 
throne at the mercy of a few English frigates, and 
his august self the sport of a thousand English 
soldiers. Taokwang might well have believed that 
" after me the deluge ; " for no man in all history 
ever took a fall from such a height in so brief a 



TAOKWANG'S SURPRISE. 145 

time ; and the joke of it was that with Taokwang 
it was so unexpected, and so contrary to the teach- 
ings of the classics, that he really never understood 
what had happened to him up to the day of his 
death. No comic opera was ever half so enter- 
taining as his career. 

The first years of the new emperor's reign were 
disturbed by wars with the tributary tribes of 
Turkestan, with the Miautze, — the highlanders of 
China, — and with the Formosans, in all of which 
the Chinese were successful, in spite of the fact 
that justice was on the side of the rebels. Until 
April, 1834, all commercial intercourse between 
England and China had been through the East 
India Company; and while the position of the 
virtual rulers of all India was most humiliating in 
China, still their wrongs were strictly individual, 
and not national ones. This state of affairs was 
not satisfactory to the merchants ; and on the ex- 
piration of the East India Company's charter, they 
insisted on holding the home government respon- 
sible for the redress of their injuries, rather than 
their late employers. To meet this new condition of 
affairs, and to provide for an official representative, 
the English government sent out in 1834 Lord 
Napier as chief superintendent of trade. Napier 
refused to communicate with the viceroy through 



146 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the usuax lorm of petition, but insisted that his 
credentials be received as they were written and 
prepared under the direction of his queen. He 
proceeded to Canton without asking for a passport 
at Macao, where he remained three months with- 
out being officially recognized further than being 
officially expelled in August, 1834. As a hint to 
hasten his departure, all trade was suspended with 
British subjects, Chinese servants were withdrawn 
from the European settlement, and an embargo 
placed on provisions. After a hundred years of 
humiliation, the British at last made up their 
minds to resent this last insult, and the British 
frigates " Imogene " and " Andromache " were 
ordered to Canton. On the way up the river they 
silenced the supposedly impregnable Bogue forts 
with about as much difficulty as they would have 
experienced in knocking down a Malayan stockade. 
With the frigate's guns covering the factories 
at Honan, life and property for the time were safe, 
but trade was dead, and provisions were scarce ; 
and Lord Napier, believing that discretion was the 
better part of valor, withdrew to Macao, and the 
impertinent frigates were ordered down stream, or 
as the mandarins boastfully expressed it in a 
memorial to the emperor, the " barbarian eye " 
(Napier) has been driven out, and the two war- 



NO OPIUM TRADE. 147 

ships " dragged over the shallows and expelled." 
Napier died at Macao shortly after his arrival ; and 
the diplomatic victory for the moment remained 
with the Chinese, who were openly boastful, and 
despised the English for sacrificing their honor to 
protect their trade. But they only dimly appre- 
ciated the true character of the men with whom 
they were dealing ; and Confucius had neglected 
to include among his stories the tale of the last 
straw that broke the camel's back. 

The Chinese government, however, had two 
complaints against the foreign trade in China 
which they brought forward with more or less 
show of reason. They complained of the vast 
amount of silver that was lost to the empire con- 
sequent upon the trade with Europe, which 
amounted to over sixty million taels annually, 
and also of the illicit trade in opium, "foreign 
dirt, which was fast growing to vast proportions." 

One of the so-called crimes which has been laid 
at Britain's door was this forcing of opium upon 
China. It is a long story, and both sides have 
been ably handled by eminent writers ; but after a 
careful study of all the causes that led to the first 
and second wars in China, and the opening of the 
treaty ports, I think that England stood strictly 
within her rights, and that opium was only an 



148 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

incident rather than the cause of the final clash. 
Had the Chinese been in earnest in their desire to 
prohibit the importation of opium from India, 
they would have forbidden the cultivation of 
poppy in their own provinces. 

While I am an enemy of any drug or liquor that 
destroys manhood, I must assert that opium is less 
harmful to the Chinese than alcohol is to the Anglo- 
Saxon ; a pipe of opium taken after a hard day's 
work seems to be beneficial rather than destruc- 
tive. The opium trade was a problem which cost 
the British government quite as many sleepless 
nights as it did the Chinese. Lord Palmerston 
and all the members of liis cabinet thoroughly dis- 
approved of it, and officially let it be known that 
English subjects carried it on at their own risk. 
It had, however, become so mixed up with legiti- 
mate trade that any drastic measures for its sup- 
pression would cause great hardships, and bring 
ruin to many of the pioneer English hongs in 
China. If the English government persisted in 
driving their own people out of business, it simply 
meant that the Dutch, French, and Americans 
would become their heirs. Sir G. Robinson, who 
succeeded Davis as superintendent of trade, be- 
came so exasperated at his inability to satisfy 
either the Chinese or his own people, that in 



SUPERINTENDENT OF TRADE. 149 

February, 1836, he wrote Lord Palmerston sug- 
gesting that the growth of the poppy should be 
discontinued m India. The failure of the English 
to keep opium out of China is about similar to 
our attempts to keep " fire-water " from the 
American Indians. 

In 1836 Captain Elliot, R.N., was appointed 
superintendent of trade ; and although he was a 
much stronger and more able man than his prede- 
cessors, he weakly consented to petition to the 
viceroy for permission to reside outside of Canton, 
thus for the time surrendering the point which 
had caused Lord Napier's downfall. The viceroy 
rightfully considered this as a great diplomatic 
victory, after England had demonstrated her supe- 
riority in war, and in his dispatch to the emperor 
said that the troubles with the barbarians were 
over, and that, as an inferior race, they would 
henceforth meekly occupy the position which they 
ought to be content to accept. In the meantime 
the opium question had caused much wrangling 
in the Peking cabinet. Some were for legalizing 
the drug, others were for its total exclusion. In 
1839 the anti-opium party became supreme, and 
Lin was appointed with full powers to suppress 
the traffic. Eight days after his arrival in Canton 
(March 18, 1839) Lin ordered that all opium in 



150 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

the foreign factories should be delivered to him. 
Following up his order, he surrounded the foreign 
god owns with his braves, lined the water-front 
with war-junks, and ordered the Chinese servants 
to again withdraw from the service of the barbari- 
ans. By the 4th of May, there being no alter- 
native, 20,283 chests of opium were handed over 
to Lin ; but every concession made by the Euro- 
peans for the sake of trade only brought with it 
fresh humiliation. After obtaining the opium 
and partially destroying it, the wily Lin over- 
reached himself in demanding that sixteen of the 
leading merchants should be turned over to him for 
punishment for having engaged in illegal trade. 

The English declined, and left Canton in a 
body for jNlacao. Here, however, they found that 
they were unwelcome guests ; and on the 26th 
August, 1839, they, with all they possessed, de- 
parted for the rocky, inhospitable, pirate-invested 
island of Hong Kong. This was, however, going 
a step farther than Lin had intended, as he had 
no wish to actually lose the lucrative English 
trade. He promptly entered into negotiations 
with Elliot for the return of the obstinate barba- 
rians to Canton, where it would be easier for 
him to " squeeze " them to his heart's content. 
The English were foolishly about to consent to 



BATTLE OF CHUNPL 151 

return, when Lin again overreached himself by 
insisting that the English merchants should sign 
a bond consenting to come under Chinese law, 
and to be tried and punished by it. On receipt 
of Elliot's refusal, he and his fugitive colony were 
ordered to leave Chinese soil within three days. 
Having nowhere to go, they decided to once more 
appeal to arms. An engagement took place be- 
tween Lin's fleet of war-junks and fire-ships and 
H. B. M.'s " Volage " and " Hyacinth " on Novem- 
ber 3, 1839, at Chunpi, in which the Chinese were 
badly worsted. Lin was in no way shocked at 
the result, but immediately placed a price upon 
Elliot's head. By this time the English govern- 
ment at home had discovered that if it ever in- 
tended to do anything to protect its interests in 
China, it must commence at once or give up the 
struggle. 

In 1841 Sir Gordon Bremer blockaded Canton, 
occupied Tinghai on the island of Chusan, and 
then proceeded to the mouth of the Peiho, where 
Captain Elliot was met by Kishen, the imperial 
commissioner, who was successful in inducing the 
fleet to return to Canton. Here the talk con- 
tinued for six weeks with no result, until on the 
6th of January, 1841, Elliot grew tired of the 
diplomatic delays, and did the only thing that 



152 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

Chinese statesmen understand — sent an ultima- 
tum, and demanded an answer within twelve 
hours. No reply being received, the English 
ships opened fire on the forts at Chuenti and 
Taikoh, reducing both places in an hour, and in- 
flicting a loss of five hundred killed and two hun- 
dred wounded, and the destruction of sixteen 
war-.junks. This proceeding was a great shock to 
the Canton officials ; and they made haste to enter 
into a treaty whereby Hong Kong was ceded to 
the English, six million dollars paid for the opium 
destroyed, and they graciously condescended to 
recognize English officials on terms of equality. 
Canton was also to become an open treaty port. 

When the Son of Heaven heard of this treaty 
he was thunderstruck. Kishen was promptly 
arrested, and carried a prisoner to Peking. The 
treaty was disavowed, and fifty thousand dollars 
was placed on the heads of Captain Elliot, Sir 
Gordon Bremer, and Mr. Morrison. This time 
the English did not hesitate. They stormed and 
took the famous Bogue forts, and the guns of 
the squadron were trained on the city of Canton. 
This was going too far ; and rather than have the 
match touched to them, the Chinese officials were 
willing that their august sovereign should be 
thunderstruck the second time. Another treaty 



THE ENGLISH CONQUEST. 153 

was entered into ; but it soon became clear to the 
English that the maintenance of peace was impos- 
sible until the Chinese were thoroughly con- 
vinced of the superiority of the European methods 
of making war. What had taken place in Canton 
most profoundly shocked his majesty, but he 
ascribed the defeat of the Chinese to the inca- 
pacity of his leaders ; then, Canton was a long 
way from Peking, and the impression made by 
the foreigners was not near enough at home. To 
correct this fault the British fleet sailed north- 
ward on August 21, 1842, taking Amoy on the 
way, and retaking Tinghai. They next reduced 
Chenhai, to the great surprise of Viceroy Yukien, 
and occupied Ningpo without firing a shot. The 
emperor and his hide-bound cabinet were begin- 
ning to grow nervous ; but it was not until 
Wusung and Shanghai had fallen chat Taokwang 
commenced to think seriously of effectually crush- 
ing the impertinent barbarians. 

On the 3d August the fleet started up the 
Yangtse-Kiang for the ancient capital of Nan 
king, and on the 9th the debarkation of troops 
began. The imperial commissioners, Ilipu, Kiying, 
and Niukien, seeing that the game was up, asked J 
for an armistice ; and another treaty was signed 
which was genuine, and the first war with China 



154 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

came to an end. This treaty of August 29, 1842, 
opened to the world the great ports of Canton, 
Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai; gave 
Hong Kong to the British, along with a war in- 
demnity of $20,000,000. 

On July 3, 1844, a treaty of peace, amity, and 
commerce was concluded between the United 
States and China by Caleb Gushing for the United 
States, and Tsiyeng, "of the imperial house, a vice- 
guardian of the heir apparent, governor-general of 
the two Kwangs, and superintendent-general of 
the trade and foreign intercourse of the five ports," 
on the part of China. The treaty was, however, 
not signed without the usual attempt of evasion 
and procrastination. When Mr. Cushing arrived 
in February, 1844, on the United States ship 
" Brandywine," he took up his residence in Macao. 
He was at once informed, in a most solemn and 
impressive manner, that he would on no account 
be allowed to proceed to Peking, as the United 
States had never yet sent tribute to the Son of 
Heaven, and could not therefore be included 
among the tributary states. 

This impertinence came a little late; and al- 
though negotiations were impeded by a riot, in 
which an American killed a Chinaman, the treaty 
was finally concluded without the United States 



FOREIGN RELATIONS. 155 

having to acknowledge the superiority of the Chi- 
nese emperor. However, on account of the bad 
blood that had arisen over the matter, President 
Tyler conceded the withdrawal of Mr. Gushing, 
who left Macao for the United States on August 
27, 1844. 

He was succeeded by Alexander H. Everett, 
who was taken ill on the way, and returned imme- 
diately to the United States. During his absence, 
Commander James Biddle, U. S. Navy, and Peter 
Parker, were in charge of the legation. Mr, 
Everett returned to China in October, 1846, and 
remained until June, 1847. Mr. Parker was again 
in charge of the legation, from that date until the 
arrival of Mr. John W. Davis, August 24, 1848. 
In 1844 United States consulates were established 
at Hong Kong and Canton, with Thomas W. Wal- 
dron and Paul S. Forbes respectively as consuls. 

On October 23, 1844, a treaty was signed be- 
tween China and France, similar to those en- 
tered into by England and the United States. 
The Chinese officials at Canton, however, did not 
take kindly to the provisions of these treaties, and 
mobs and murders were quite the order of the 
day. The Bogue forts had to be, for the third 
time, reduced. It is worth recording here, that in 
July, 1844, a Chinese mob at Canton would have 



156 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

burned the foreign factories, but for the interfer- 
ence of the American frigate " St. Louis," which 
went to their relief from Whampoa, — a port of 
call distant fifteen miles from Canton. The Eng- 
lish at the time had a strong fleet at Hong Kong, 
but for some reason they took no interest in these 
repeated calls for protection from the Canton mer- 
chants. However, before the death of Taokwang, 
in 1850, the empire had begun to accommodate 
itself to the new state of affairs, and the " foreign 
devils " had made themselves quite at home within 
the five treaty ports. 

From this date on, China may be considered as 
belonging to the sisterhood of nations, and her 
history a part of the world's history. Although 
from an international point of view the most inter- 
esting event of Taokwang's reign w^as the strug- 
gle that led up to the opening of the treaty ports, 
it must not be understood that it was free from in- 
ternal rebellions, secret societies, insurrections, and 
court cabals. In fact, the seeds of the great 
Taiping rebellion, that shook the empire to its 
very center, were sown and nurtured during the 
last years of his reign. The murder of the gover- 
nor of Macao, M. Amaral, which was incited by 
the Canton viceroy, was the means of losing to 
China the suzerainty of the Portuguese colony. 



AMERICAN COMMERCE. 157 

The American trade to China commenced 
shortly after the Revolutionary War. The first 
recorded facts regarding it date from the season 
of 178^-1785, at which time two American ships, 
the "Empress of China," John Green, master, with 
Major Samuel Shaw of Boston, late aide-de-camp 
to General Knox, as supercargo, and the " Pallas," 
which was consigned to Robert Morris, one of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence, 
were loaded at Canton for the United States. 
Among the other cargo they carried 880,100 
pounds of tea. The next season there was only 
one vessel at Canton, which exported 695,000 
pounds of tea. In 1786-1787 there were six 
ships engaged in the trade ; viz., " Hope," " Ex- 
periment," " Grand Turk," " Jenny," " Washing- 
ton," and " Asia," which carried tea to the extent 
of 1,181,860 pounds. 

During the season of 1832-1833 there were 
fifty-nine American ships at Canton. The car- 
goes they brought are rather interesting, as they 
show to a certain extent what demand had devel- 
oped among the Chinese for American goods. 
The principal items were quicksilver, lead, iron, 
copper, tin-plates, opium, ginseng, rice, broad- 
cloth, camlets, chintzes, cambrics, velvets, bomba- 
zettes, fancy handkerchiefs, Hnen, cotton drilling. 



158 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

yarn, and prints, sea-otter, fox anc! seal skins, 
pearl shells, sandalwood, cochineal, music-boxes, 
clocks, and watches. If we add to this list 
American flour and kerosene oil, it will cover all 
our exports to the China of to-day. Evidently 
these early Boston merchants had a keen eye for 
Chinese peculiarities, and, unlike many of our mod- 
ern merchants, did not waste their time and money 
in trying to sell them something they did not 
want. 

The growth of trade between the United States 
and Canton was steady and encouraging. In 
1805 American sailing-vessels brought into the 
country $5,326,358 worth of American goods, 
and bought $5,127,000 worth of tea, silk, camphor, 
etc. In 1833 these imports had increased to 
18,362,971, and the exports to America to $8,372,- 
175. Mr. Forbes remained consul at Canton 
until 1855, when he was succeeded by Oliver H. 
Perry of Massachusetts. 

It is interesting to note in this connection that 
the first official commercial trade report on China 
that was ever submitted to the United States 
Congress was written by Major Shaw, the talented 
supercargo of the " Empress of China." His ship 
arrived in New York, ]\Iay 11, 1785, and shortly 
after Shaw addressed an able and very interesting 



THE SHAW TREATY. 159 

history of the voyage to John Jay, secretary of 
state, and an earnest worker for American develop- 
ment. Mr. Jay laid the Shaw treaty before Con- 
gress, and that body resolved : " That Congress 
feels a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue 
of this first effort of the citizens of America to 
establish a direct trade with China, which does so 
much honor to its undertakers and conductors." 



160 CHIN J' S OPEN DOOR. 



VIII. 



FROM THE TAIPING REBELLION 
TO THE CHUFOO CONVENTION. 

[A.D. 1857 -A.D. 1876.] 

WHEN Hienfung came to the throne he 
found himseK confronted with pro- 
bably the last of the old-fashioned 
rebellions that will ever devastate all China. 
To-day all parts of the empire are connected 
by the telegraph, steamers force the currents 
of the swiftest rivers, and a small body of 
ill-paid imperial troops, with modern arms in 
their hands, would soon, if they did not decide 
to join hands with the rebels, quiet a mob of 
peasantry armed with scythes and gingalls. 
Before the introduction of the telegraph a 
leader like Hung Hsiutsuan, the " Heavenly 
King " of the Taipings, could collect about him a 
few thousand malcontents, swoop down on a city, 
add it to his force, and continue without much 
opposition until one or more provinces and an 
army of 200,000 men stood at his back, before 



THE TAIPING REBELLION, 161 

the imperial ears at Peking had received a hint as 
to the disturbance. It will be noted that nearly 
all Chinese rebellions originate in a frontier or 
remote province. The neighborhood of Canton 
has always been a fertile germinating ground. The 
raison d'etre for a rebellion is always plunder ; the 
excuse, reform, and the overthrow of the ruling 
dynasty. 

The Taipings' cry was, " Down with the Tar- 
tar." Their platform was " purity " ; and their 
leader professed to be a Christian, and to receive 
revelations direct from God. He called his sect 
the " Association of the Almighty." Starting in 
the neighborhood of Canton, the rebels occupied 
the cities of Lienchow, Yunganchow, and Nanking. 
The Viceroy Yeh of Canton was thoroughly 
alarmed, and prepared for a vigorous defense ; but 
Hung feared to risk a set-back, and marched from 
Kwangtung province into Hunan, and on March 
8, 1853, established himself in Nanking, which 
he made his capital. Hung proclaimed himself 
emperor, and by the same authority created five 
of his chiefs princes of the new Taiping dynasty. 
The luxury of the palaces of Nanking proved too 
much for this son of the soil and fanatical dreamer, 
and as a factor in the subsequent events he was 
lost. Two months later a force was dispatched 



162 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

to storm Peking, for without possession of the 
imperial city no rebel king could stand before his 
followers as a king in anything more than name. 
It was a perilous undertaking, and Hung and his 
generals ought to have been contented with one- 
half of the empire. The distance was over one 
thousand miles ; and even if the imperial troops 
were paralyzed with fear, there were great rivers 
to ford and mountains to cross without pontoon- 
trains, engineer corps, or commissariat. 

The march was a daring one, yet it reflects 
more discredit on the imperial forces than on the 
invaders. In six months' time the rebels had 
traversed four provinces, taken twenty-six cities, 
subsisted on the enemy, and finally intrenched 
themselves near Tientsin, within a hundred miles 
of Peking. Here, however, they found their 
Capua, and seemed to lose all desire to possess 
the capital. For two years this vast army gave 
itself up to raids and wholesale robberies, at the 
end of which time it drifted back to Nanking a 
disorganized mass. It was at this time that the 
now celebrated statesman, Li Hung Chang, first 
came on the scene as colonel of a volunteer regi- 
ment. He did not, however, have an opportunity 
to make a reputation as a soldier. 

Not satisfied with the lessons that had been 



ALLIES ENTER PEKING, 163 

taught them by the first real contest with West- 
ern arms, or deterred by the victorious march of 
the Taipings, China rushed blindly into a war 
with England and France that revealed to the 
world all her rottenness and sham. 

The day the allies entered Peking, and put the 
torch to the emperor's palace, the carefully built up 
prestige of China departed ; from her high estate 
she fell to the level of her tributary nations of 
Korea, Burma, and Turkestan. For two hundred 
years she had treated the Occidentals as the dirt 
under her feet, and had looked upon all the earth 
as little more than barbarian frontiers. As in her 
previous wars with the Kins, the Khitans, and the 
Mongols, the Son of Heaven was not permitted to 
be disturbed in his fancied security until his 
sacred person was in actual momentary danger; 
and then, as usual, he ignominiously fled, and per- 
mitted events to take their own course. The 
English soon discovered that taking and retaking 
the defenses of Canton, the occupation of small 
tracts of territory like Hong Kong Island, or the 
placing of a ransom on the provincial capital itself, 
made little impression on the imperial court, and 
if they ever expected to be fully recognized as an 
equal, and be protected in trade, the final battle 
must be fought in Peking itself ; so in 1856 and 



164 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

1857, when the Viceroy Yeh of Canton, under in- 
structions from the Peking government, inaugur- 
ated a high-handed and brutal pohcy in his dealings 
with the foreign merchants, the British govern- 
ment did not rest with the capture of the Bogue 
forts, the occupation of Canton, and the banish- 
ment of the haughty Yeh. The time had come 
when China must be forced to enter into a treaty 
that forever safeguarded the rights of all foreign- 
ers, or fight. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, repre- 
senting the English and French forces, addressed 
a letter to Yu, the first member of the Privy 
Council, demanding that a commission should 
meet at Shanghai to discuss conditions of peace. 

Mr. William B. Reed, American minister, and 
his Russian colleague, wrote the council in the 
same line. The reply was, as might be expected, 
evasive and unsatisfactory. The British fleet, 
early in May, 1857, under the command of Ad- 
miral Sir Michael Seymour, proceeded to the 
Peiho, reduced the Taku forts, and anchored be- 
fore Tientsin. The ease with which the impreg- 
nable Taku forts had been knocked to pieces by 
the English guns caused great consternation in 
Peking ; and the emperor made haste to conclude 
a treaty with Lord Elgin, whereby the English 
were permitted to have a resident minister in 



BOMBARDMENT OF TAKU. 1G5 

Peking, the ports of Newchwang, Tengchow, 
Formosa, Swatow, and Kienchow were opened, 
and the opium traffic was legalized. The treaty 
was signed on June 26, 1857. The United States, 
France, and Russia completed similar treaties im- 
mediately after. 

The Chinese, however, considered that the treaty 
had been wrung from them by force, and its ratifi- 
cation was evaded and delayed. In Canton mobs 
were incited to murder foreigners, and a reward 
of thirty thousand dollars was placed on the head 
of the British consul, Harry Parks. As a last 
resource, the wily Celestial tried to induce the 
English and French to have their treaties ratified 
at Shanghai instead of at Peking; but Messrs. 
Bruce and Bourboulon declined, and ordered their 
allied forces to assemble off the mouth of the 
Peiho. The Chinese, finding that evasion was no 
longer possible, determined once more to try their 
fortunes on the battlefield. The allies soon dis- 
covered that, while they had been making useless 
treaties, the enemy had been working day and 
night on the defenses of Taku, and blocking the 
river with massive booms, iron stakes, and rafts. 
On the night of June 23, 1859, one of the booms 
was blown up ; and the next day the British fleet, 
under Admiral Hope, attempted to force the pas- 



166 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

sage, while a force of six hundred marines and 
engineers stormed the forts. Both attacks were 
unsuccessful, and the British were repulsed with 
very severe losses. It was during this engage- 
ment that the now famous phrase, *' blood is 
thicker than water," was born. The American 
commodore, Tatnal, was present at the engage- 
ment ; and seeing that the battle was going badly 
for the English, and that their gunboats were 
being rapidly disabled by the heavy fire from the 
forts, was unable to stand calmly by and see the 
men of his own flesh and blood mowed down. 
He ordered his flagship to tow the English boats 
into action, and to remain under fire as long as 
there was anyone to rescue. When called upon 
for an explanation of his conduct, he replied that 
" blood was thicker than water." 

The initial success of the Chinese was the very 
worst thing that could have happened to them. It 
convinced them that their former reverses had 
been simply the result of bad leadership, and con- 
firmed them in their determination to repudiate 
the treaty. Mr. John E. Ward, who in 1859 had 
succeeded Mr. Reed as American minister, was 
invited by the governor-general of Chihli to come 
to Pehtang, who promised to send him in safety 
to Peking, where the ratifying of the treaty could 



MR, WARD'S TRIAL, 167 

be discussed. The viceroy was as good as his 
word as far as sending him to Peking was con- 
cerned ; but it was done only to amuse the people 
along the route by making a spectacle of one of 
the hated barbarians. Not a word was said re- 
garding the ratification of the treaty; and after 
being made grave sport of by the imperial com- 
missioner at Peking, he was returned " right side 
up with care," to Pehtang, where he foolishly con- 
sented to ratify the treaty on August 16, 1859. 

It was a weak and unnecessary concession 
on his part, as he should have stood out with 
the English and French plenipotentiaries, and 
ordered, if necessary, the American squadron to 
join with the allies in forcing the Celestials to 
abide by the strict letter of the law. A ridiculous 
rumor, illustrated by appropriate pictures, respect- 
ing this journey, was circulated in Paris, to the 
effect that Mr. Ward and his party were conducted 
from the coast in an immense box, or traveling- 
chamber, drawn over land by oxen, and then put 
on a raft to be towed up the river and imperial 
canal as far as the gate of the capital. Fortu- 
nately for the future of trade in China, the Eng- 
lish and French ministers would not submit to the 
indignities enjoyed by Mr. Ward ; and in March, 
1860, the English minister, Bruce, presented an 



168 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

ultimatum, demanding reparation for the treacher- 
ous attack at Taku, and an immediate fulfillment 
of the treaty. The ultimatum only provoked a 
sneer from Peking; and by August 12 of the 
same year a force of thirteen thousand English, 
under Sir Hope Grant, seven thousand French, 
commanded by General Montauban, and two thou- 
sand five hundred Cantonese Coolies, advanced 
from the land side on the Taku forts. 

The attack was without precedent in Chinese 
military science, — certainly it was only the fair 
thing for the barbarians to attack as they had 
before, on the river front. The Chinese general, 
Sankolinsin, was thunderstruck when he saw the 
allied force on land, and marching rapidly on the 
undefended side of his forts ; but like a good Chi- 
nese general he immediately wrote his imperial 
kinsman and master that the barbarians had landed 
with his full knowledge and consent, as he wished 
to entice them away from their ships, and then 
overwhelm them. The Son of Heaven readily saw 
the astuteness of the scheme, and Sankolinsin 
might have won a peacock feather and a yellow 
jacket had the last part of his plan of campaign 
worked as well as the first. Unfortunately for him, 
however, he did not take the allies into his confi- 
dence ; and they, not understanding his wily strat- 



CAPTURE OF TIENTSIN. 169 

Qgj^ never stopped in their march until the Taku 
forts were in their hands. The battle was a stub- 
bornly contested one, the Chinese standing to 
their guns manfully, even after their officers had 
deserted. The allies occupied Tientsin, and de- 
clined to receive any overtures from the imperial 
commissioners as long as the Cliinese forces were 
preparing to resist their advance to the capital. 

On the 9th of September the allies left Tientsin 
for Tungchow ; and on the way they were met by 
Tsai, prince of I, who was most convincing in his 
protestations that the Son of Heaven was anxious 
for an honorable peace. Unfortunately again for 
Chinese diplomacy, Consul Parkes, on an early 
morning ride, discovered that the troops of the 
amusing Sankolinsin were so disposed in ambush 
that they would be able to fire upon the allies' 
next proposed camp from three sides. Parkes dis- 
patched his companion, Loch, to warn Sir Hope 
Grant, while he hurried to the quarters of the 
Prmce of I to demand an explanation. His 
temerity cost liim his liberty and nearly his life ; 
and the Chinese forces, throwing off all pretenses 
of peace, fought the battle of Changchiawan, in 
wliich they suffered a crushing defeat. Sankolin- 
sin made a last stand at Palichiao on September 
21, but he was not able to turn the allies from 



170 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

Peking. In the meantime the emperor had fled 
to Jehol, and left his brother, Prince Kung, in 
command. Kung informed Elgin and Gros that 
he had full power to conclude a treaty, and asked 
for an armistice. The commissioners, however, 
had had quite enough of Chinese diplomacy, and 
declined to cease hostilities until Consul Parkes 
and his associates were released. No answer was 
made ; and the order was given to march on Peking, 
and occupy the emperor's summer palace, Yuen- 
Ming- Yuen. This had the desired effect, as far as 
such of the prisoners were concerned, as had been 
fortunate enough to live through the hardships, 
brutality, and tortures of their prisons. 

The sight of the sufferings of the survivors 
of the original thirty aroused such indignatioa 
throughout the allied army that the commissioners 
in addition to the one hundred thousand pounds 
that they demanded as an indemnity for the fam- 
ilies of the murdered men, decided to destroy the 
beautiful summer palace. This was done after 
the occupation of Peking. The game was now 
entirely in the hands of the allies ; and it is hardly 
necessary to state that the Tientsin treaty was 
ratified within the sacred walls of Peking, in spite 
of the theatrical raving of the imperial coward at 
Jehol. A convention was also signed whereby 



CESSION OF HONG KONG. 171 

China paid eight million taels for war expenses, 
and ceded to Great Britain the Kowloon coast- 
line, directly opposite to Hong Kong. The Eng- 
lish were entirely too modest in their demands in 
this cession. Had they taken ten times as much 
territory on the mainland, it would have saved 
them much future trouble. The size of the ces- 
sion, however, was controlled by the range of the 
cannon of 1860, the best of which would carry 
little farther than across the strait which separates 
the mainland from the island of Hong Kong. 

With this narrow strip added to the colony, the 
English military experts of the time announced 
that Hong Kong was strategically secure. Less 
than twenty years after, it was discovered that 
Hong Kong was at the mercy of the modern 
guns of a fleet lying perfectly protected by 
a range of intervening mountains seven miles 
distant. The result was that England was forced 
in 1898 to ask, or rather demand, the lease of an 
additional area of territory embracing Mir's and 
Deep Bays. Any demand for territory after the 
fall of Peking would have been speedily met by 
the emperor, and England might have added half 
the delta of the Pearl River to her list of colonial 
possessions. Even in the cession of the last four 
hundred square miles England erred in taking 



172 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

either too little or too much. For military pur- 
poses half the territory would have been sufficient, 
and easily defended; for agricultural purposes, 
two hundred square miles additional would have 
made the new territory self-supporting. However, 
the Englishman is a thorough-going colonist, and 
a believer in " good roads;" and the ink was hardly 
dry on the so-called lease before a small army of 
Chinese coolies were cutting a great turnpike 
through the very heart of the sterile peninsula, 
and the forestry department was planting trees by 
the thousands over the barren red hills. In April, 
1898, my big tug-boat, the " Fame," was nearly 
wrecked in trying to carry dispatches to Dewey's 
fleet, which lay in Chinese waters but seven miles 
away as the crow flies, but fifty miles by sea. 
Within three months after the occupation of this 
mountainous, roadless stretch of land, I rode my 
bicycle in an hour to the shore of Mir's Bay, over 
a broad macadamized road. Yet we refuse to 
take advantage of England's colonial experiencQ 
in solving our troubles in the Philippines. 

In passing upon Russia's course in Chma from 
the same date (1860) no like hesitancy or lack of 
policy can be laid at her door. From the day 
when she obtained her foothold on the uninhabited 
steppes between Usuri and the ocean, she never 



RUSSIAN EXPANSION. 173 

wavered in her iinmistakable determination to 
obtain an open seaport on the Pacific. In the be- 
ginning Russia may not have appreciated the 
wealth and possibilities of the land that she was 
absorbing from year to year, but that was a 
question that she could well afford to leave for 
future investigation. She expanded on the line of 
least resistance, and all was fish that came to her 
net. Neither did Russia worry herself regarding 
the populating or improving of these vast tracts, 
and until twenty years ago the land remained as 
she found it. Her clearly defined poHcy has 
always been to never look a gift-horse in the 
mouth, and to thankfully receive every thing that 
came her way. The freedom of the serf, which at 
the time was looked upon as the harmless fad of 
an amiable emperor, supplied the wanting popula- 
tion. The freed peasantry of Russia eagerly ac- 
cepted government aid to get away from their 
former masters, and the traditions of their old 
land of bondage ; and in a surprisingly short time 
they transformed Siberia from a penal colony 
to a prosperous dependency that is fast becoming 
to the empire what Australia is to Great Britain. 
The net result of this onward policy to-day is 
the practically completed trans-Siberian railway 
and the acquisition of Port Arthur and Tailewan ; 



174 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

to-morrow it may be Peking and the Yangtsze 
valley. Great Britain, Germany, and France lease 
a few hundred square miles each ; and while they 
are arguing over the terms, Russia quietly extends 
her frontiers to cover half the province. 

The fortunes of the Taipings rose and fell from 
year to year. They were at high tide in 1860 ; and 
the Manchus, despairing of ever regaining their 
sway, appealed to the foreigners with whom they 
had lately been at war to come to their assistance. 
At the suggestion of Li Hung Chang, now viceroy, 
the Chinese merchants of Shanghai organized 
themselves into a patriotic association, raised a 
fund, and engaged two Americans, Ward and 
Burgevine, to form a foreign legion, for the protec- 
tion of the city, and conduct operations against the 
rebels. Under the able leadership of Ward, the 
"ever victorious army " of four hundred adven- 
turers, of all nationalities, captured a number of 
cities, and obtained as their reward a large amount 
of plunder ; but in spite of high pay and rich 
pickings. Ward found it necessary to lead every 
attack in person in order to make his rabble fight ; 
and in the storming of the city of Tzuki he was 
mortally wounded. He was succeeded by his 
lieutenant, Burgevine, who made war upon the 



"CHINESE GORDONr 175 

purse of the patriotic association rather than upon 
the common enemy, and ended by being dismissed 
from his command before he had fought a battle. 
"^^e was replaced by Major Gordon, who was lent 
by the British general, Stavely, and new life was 
given to the discordant element of the ever vic- 
torious army. Gordon's first point of attack was 
Fushan, which fell an easy prey, and brought about 
the capitulation of Changshu. Li Hung Chang 
was naturally delighted with his allies, and the 
emperor conferred upon Gordon the rank of 
general in the Chinese service, a distinction of 
which Li would like to have relieved him a little 
later, in company with his head. 

The capture of Taitsang and Kunshan opened 
the way to the important city of Soochow. On a 
promise from Gordon that all the lives of the rebel 
commanders would be spared, the city capitulated. 
Li, however, paid no attention to his subordinate's 
plighted word, and had them all promptly exe- 
cuted. When the report of Li's bloodthirsty 
treachery was brought to Gordon, he was so 
enraged that he grasped a rifle, and started for 
head-quarters. Li, however, did not await his call, 
and precipitately decamped before Gordon arrived. 
Gordon was not a philosopher, and not being 
willing to overlook Li's act as an interesting 



176 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

Chinese characteristic, sent in his resignation. I 
thought of this episode in Li's checkered career as 
I talked with the famous Chinaman one day in 
Hong Kong, when he was on his way to Canton 
to act as viceroy of the Two Kwangs. Li had 
been descanting for an hour upon the injustice we 
were doing his countrymen by excluding them 
from the Philippines. His last words to me were, 
" Tell General Otis that Li Hung Chang asks him 
to be kind to the Chinese." I could not but 
smile at the pathos in his voice in the light of his 
history. 

For the fall of Soochow, Li received from the 
emperor the " yellow jacket " that he lost at the 
close of the late Japanese war. He was also 
ordered to hand Gordon ten thousand taels and 
the military button of the first rank. Li did as 
ordered, and his envoys were received by Gordon 
with a walking-stick, and Avere soundly thrashed out 
of his tent. Li humbled himself, and begged 
Gordon to consider his resignation. In a short 
campaign Gordon reduced the Taiping king, and 
stripped him of all his possessions save Nanking. 
The imperial army under Tseng Kwofan, the 
father of the late Marquis Tseng, who afterwards 
represented China at the court of St. James, took 
that city by assault. The " heavenly king " 



LI HUNG CHANG. 177 

poisoned himself with gold leaf, and his heir was 
beheaded in an attempt to escape. The great 
Taiping rebellion was at an end, but China had 
learned nothing. Li disbanded the ever victorious 
army in June, 1864, in spite of Gordon's protest; 
and when the Japanese war broke out they were 
as absolutely unprepared to meet the conditions as 
though they were still living in the pastoral age. 

Li's name as a statesman was made by General 
Grant, who stated that Li and Bismarck were the 
two greatest minds that he met during his trip 
round the world. Li, however, has never shown 
any great ability save as a " trimmer." To-day 
as viceroy of Canton he is not able to suppress 
the petty piracy on the West River, but looks to 
England for police protection for his inland trade, 
and plays fast and loose with promises of protec- 
tion to imprisoned ministers and beleaguered for- 
eigners. It is small wonder that for the safety of 
the legations shut up in Peking the British govern- 
ment seriously considered holding the crafty old 
viceroy as hostage in Shanghai for the safety of 
the fugitives in Peking. 

The Chinese have added the bust of Marco Polo 
to their pantheon of five hundred idols in Can- 
ton, but alongside of Confucius and Polo they 
should place Gordon and Ward. The present dy- 



178 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

nasty owes more to these last men than they can 
ever repay, although during their lifetime they 
tried systematically to detract from their glory, 
and rob them of all credit. Ward gave up his life 
in their cause, and Gordon refused the proposal of 
Burgevine to turn the "ever victorious army" 
against the imperialists, and acting with the Taip- 
ings grasp the tottering throne for themselves. 
They could have done it, and Gordon knew it 
when he was tempted. Burgevine knew the 
Chinese character better than Gordon, and did not 
permit any qualms of conscience to stand in his 
way. Had Gordon consented, the entire Chinese 
problem would have been solved without the aid 
of the so-called diplomacy of the western nations. 
Gordon declined, and died a dog's death in Khar- 
toom. Li lived to profit by Gordon's honesty 
and generosity. 

Hienfung did not return to Peking after the 
ratification of the Tientsin Treaty. He was too 
badly upset by the impertinence of the barbarians ; 
and although strongly urged by Prince Kung to 
do so, he remained at Jehol until his death, on 
August 22, 1861. As his heir was only six years 
old. Prince Kung, who had come to an understand- 
ing with the empress, was left practically supreme 
in the conduct of affairs, although he formed a 



CHINESE "DIPLOMACrr 179 

Council of Regency, in which he was associated 
with the two empress dowagers, — the widow of 
Hienfung, and the mother of the young emperor, 
— a concubine, but the ruling power in China 
in 1900. 

Until the young emperor, Tung Chih, reached 
his sixteenth birthday, all questions as to the 
right of foreign ministers to be received by the 
emperor, according to the terms of the treaty, 
were foolishly held in abeyance. The war of 
1860 had taught the Chinese that they were 
powerless in the hands of the barbarians ; and yet 
before the ink was dry on the treaty, secret in- 
structions were issued to the provincial govern- 
ment to disregard it as far as possible, especially 
the clause that, " the Chinese authorities shall at 
all times afford the fullest protection to the 
persons and property of British subjects." In 
diplomacy the Oriental has always, in the begin- 
ning, been more than a match for the Occidental. 
Metternich or Talleyrand might have met Li Hung 
Chang, or the smooth oily talkers of Aguinaldo's 
cabinet, on equal terms, but I doubt it. The 
Oriental's idea of diplomacy is to fool his adver- 
sary for the time being, regardless of the future. 
The Chinaman goes through life trying to fool 
his God with simple devices, and to draw the 



180 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

wool over the eyes of his superiors. There is 
only one kind of diplomacy that either the 
Chinese or the Filipino understands, and that 
is brute force. You may temper it mth justice, 
but the force must be plainly in evidence. Sweet 
words and assurances of esteem are not believed 
by the Orientals, and are accepted as an indis- 
putable evidence of weakness. This phase of 
diplomacy is unexpected and childlike, and it 
does not take the Occidental diplomat long to 
value it at its real worthj but by the time he 
comes to understand the Oriental, he is with- 
drawn, and a successor arrives who has to com- 
mence in the Kindergarten class, much to the 
delight of his interested opponents. 

The real reason for the establishment of the 
Tsung li Yamen, or Foreign Office, was to provide 
an air-cushion against which the missiles thrown 
by the foreign ministers at the " August Lofty 
One," would be received with the least amount 
of friction. It is the same to-day in the Philip- 
pine Islands. Each new general or commission 
cannot believe that the Filipino is as black as 
he is painted by those who know him best, or that 
he is an absolute stranger to the truth, and his 
argument commences on that basis. By the time 
he finds that he has been making a fool of him- 



JNSON BURLINGAME, 181 

self, and that the sweet-spoken little Filipino is 
as unconverted as ever, his tenure of office ex- 
pires, or he resigns, and goes home in disgust. 

It was right in line with this class of diplomacy 
that Prince Kung, in 1867, persuaded Mr. Anson 
Burlingame, the United States Minister at Peking, 
to resign, and accept a mission to all Europe, 
whose object really was to tell the world how 
foolish it was to expect the Chinese to carry 
out to the letter the obnoxious Tientsin Treaty, 
and also to inform Europe how wise, generous, 
and high-spirited the dear Chinese really were, and 
how sadly they were misunderstood. He was also 
to promise that if they were left alone they would, 
of their own sweet will, do far more to improve 
friendly relations than if they were continually 
brow-beaten and made to live up to their promises. 
Mr. Burlingame was a man of much eloquence 
and great enthusiasm, and was fast making con- 
verts in high places, when in June, 1870, the 
terrible Tientsin massacre occurred, which was so 
revolting in its details that what little progress 
the mission had made was irretrievably lost. On 
account of a rumor that children were put to 
death in the French Foundling Hospital, for the 
sake of their eyes, which were made into opium, 
a mob burned the hospital, outraged and mur- 



182 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

dered the Sisters of Mercy, burned the French 
Consulate, shot the consul, and murdered in the 
most cruel manner eighteen Frenchmen and two 
Russians. 

One would think after paying for this outrage 
an indemnity of half a million dollars, and send- 
ing an embassy to France to make a public 
apology, that the Chinese authorities at least 
would have published in their Official Gazette 
the fact that foreign Sisters of Mercy did not 
manufacture opium out of children's eyes. And 
yet, strange as it may seem, they took exactly 
the opposite course, and encouraged the fanati- 
cism of the common people. This attitude re- 
sulted in the deplorable murder of Mr. INIargary, 
of the British consular service, on February 20, 
1875, at Momein. With the full consent of the 
Chinese authorities, and supplied with proper 
passports, Mr. Margary and Colonel Brown were 
traveling through Yunnan, reporting on the trade 
possibilities of the country after the ravages of 
the recent Mohammedan rebellion. Their mission 
was distinctly a peaceful one, and they were 
neither spies nor were they accused of being such. 
Their murder was the simple outburst of the 
fanaticism of the Chinese ; and had the latter been 
Apaches, instead of a " refined, intelligent, and 



THE CHEFOO CONVENTION. 183 

civilized nation," according to Mr. Anson Bur- 
lingame, they could not have behaved in a more 
barbarous manner. British remonstrances were 
met by the Peking officials with prevarications 
and delays; and it was not until Sir Thomas 
Wade lowered the Legation Flag, and started to 
leave the country, that the Tsung li Yamen awoke 
to the idea that their bluff was about to be 
called. Further than this, the mother of Tung 
Chi had no desire to once more flee from Peking 
to escape the guns of the hated foreigner. Li 
Hung Chang was dispatched in hot haste to over- 
take Wade, and come to an understanding at 
any cost. 

The results of the Chefoo Convention were 
the sending of a Chinese minister to England, the 
settlement of compensation for the murder, the 
opening of four new ocean treaty ports, and 
six on the Yangtsze. Again had history re- 
peated itself, and the Chinese had shown that 
they understood the nature of an ultimatum, even 
if they could not appreciate the benefits of West- 
ern civilization. 



184 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 



IX. 

TUNG CHI AND THE REGENCY. 

[A.D. 1876 -A.D. 1898.] 

THE marriage of Tung Chi, on October 
16, 1872, to Aluteh, and the attain- 
ment of his majority on February 23, 
1873, was looked upon as a favorable occasion 
for the pressing of the audience question by the 
resident foreign ministers. After considerable 
pressure, the long delayed event took place ; 
and on the 29th of June, 1873, the American 
minister, Mr. Frederick F. Low, and the ministers 
for Germany, France, England, and Japan, were 
graciously admitted to the celestial presence. 
The ceremony, however, was largely discounted 
by the fact that they were received in the " Pavil- 
ion of Purple Light," outside the palace where the 
envoys of tributary states had deposited their 
offerings from time immemorial. In order to save 
the august " Face," a report was disseminated 
throughout the provinces that Sir Thomas Wade, 



THE ''DOOR'' SLOIVLT OPENS. 185 

the British minister, was so overcome with fear in 
the presence of the Son of Heaven that he fell 
down speechless and trembling on being addressed 
by the emperor. However, the door was being 
forced slowly open, although in a way that was 
not always creditable to the Europeans. 

The year 1873 saw the suppression of the Mo- 
hammedan rebellion in Kansuh, and the stamping 
oiit of the terrible Panthay uprising in Yunnan. 
The following year complications occurred in For- 
mosa with the Japanese because of the murder 
of fifty-four Japanese sailors by the Formosans. 
Unable to obtain satisfaction from the Chinese, the 
Japanese landed a force in Formosa, and war would 
have immediatelv followed but for the arbitration 
of Sir Thomas Wade. 

Tung Chi did not live long to enjoy his lease of 
supreme power. He showed a disposition to ex- 
ercise the imperial prerogative of doing as he 
pleased, and died conveniently of the small-pox on 
the 12th of January, 1875. The only person who 
now stood between the empress mother, Tsu Tsi, 
and her ambition was Aluteh and her unborn cliild. 
But Fate, which, as has often been said, is under 
government control in China, interposed, and the 
girl widow was saved many years of persecution 
by a premature death. Knowing how necessary 



186 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

it was to the success of Tsu Tsi's policy that the 
young empress should die, no one was surprised, 
and no inconvenient questions were asked. 

The transfer of the imperial yellow from the 
shoulders of one royal puppet to another created 
historically a new reign ; otherwise it was an event 
without significance in Peking. The old triumvi- 
rate had simply chosen a new figure-head for the 
Junk of State. The officers, the crew, and the pilot 
were the same. So sure were the two empress- 
dowagers that Aluteh would die of a "broken 
heart" before the dehvery of her unborn child, 
that they did not even wait for the event to take 
place, but without regard to time-honored customs 
chose Tung Chi's successor. The three-year old 
son of Prince Chun, a younger brother of Prince 
Kung, was raised to the unenviable position, and 
given the ironical title of Kwang Su, — "brilliant 
succession." Having now guaranteed the perma- 
nency of the Regency by this successful coup d 'Stat 
for another term of years, Tsu Tsi felt that she 
was fully capable of conducting the affairs of state 
without the aid of her dowager consort. So, as 
might have been expected, that August Lady died 
in 1881 of heart failure, " which nobody can deny," 
and the ex-concubine of Hienfung became the su- 
preme director of the empire, and as such made a 



RISE OF TSU TSL 187 

place for herself in history by the side of the great 
Empress Wu. Tsu Tsi's favorite, Li Hung Chang, 
was at once put in training to succeed Prince 
Kung; and in July, 1884, the trouble with France 
in Tonking furnished an opportunity to dispose of 
the veteran statesman. 

Li's elevation was contrary to precedent, as the 
post had always been filled by a Manchu ; but Tsu 
Tsi could not be expected to respect the customs 
of a nation that permitted itself to be ruled by a 
woman of her character and antecedents. She even 
called Prince Chun, the father of the emperor, to 
serve under Li as first minister of state, although 
according to ancestral rites a father cannot take 
orders from his son. Prince Chun accepted the 
post; but instead of playing the docile subject of 
the royal dummy, he asserted his rights as a father 
and an ancestor, and acquired an influence for 
good over the half-grown boy. In this he was 
assisted by the Marquis Tseng, who had just re- 
turned from the Court of St. James with his head 
filled with nineteenth century ideas. Together 
they schemed to woo the boy from the corrupting 
influences of the dowager and Li, and through him 
to inaugurate a more enlightened pohcy in China. 
The fashion of sending a dangerous noble his silken 
cord had become unfashionable in China since the 



188 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

arrival of the barbarians ; but the fashion of djdng 
of " broken heart " and " heart failure " served the 
same purpose. In 1890 Marquis Tseng, in the 
prime of life, and while in splendid health, died, 
and a few months later Prince Chun passed away. 
The power of the Dowager Empress was not 
again questioned, until the shock of the Japanese 
war loosened for a time her grasp upon the throne. 
A year after the placing of Kwang Su on the 
throne, the government found itself face to face 
with a Mohammedan rebellion. The inhabitants 
of Turkestan had never been happy in their vas- 
salage, and since the last abortive attempt in 1825 
to obtain their independence under the leadership 
of Jehangir, a descendant of their royal line, the 
people had been preparing for another trial. A son 
of Jehangir had headed a rebellion, and with the aid 
of his able general, Yakoob Khan, driven the Chi- 
nese out of Khokand, and for a time re-established 
his line. But in 1866 Yakoob deposed his king, 
and placed the crown on his own brow, and became 
known as " The Champion Father." He subdued 
Western Kashgaria, reduced the neighboring 
tribes, and created for himself an empire that bade 
fair to be permanent. The Russians, pretending 
to believe that the imperial troops were not able 
to re-assert their sovereignty over this section, 



THE ''CHAMPION FATHERr 189 

served notice on the Chinese government that they 
intended to occupy the trade routes until such 
time as China was able to protect them. A Rus- 
sian force seized Kuldja and its tributary country, 
and held it until 1881, when it was surrendered to 
China, with the exception of a strip of territory on 
tiie extreme western boundary of the provmce of 
Hi. She also exacted the payment of a war indem- 
nity of 9,000,000 roubles. 

Yakoob Khan's example was followed by the 
Dunganis tribe of eastern Turkestan, which over- 
ran the Tienshan mountains, and flowed into the 
provinces of Kansuh and Shensi. These uninter- 
rupted successes aroused the imperial government 
to the seriousness of the situation, and General 
Tso was dispatched with a big force to try and 
save western China to the empire. By the end of 
1876 he had driven the Dunganis out of China, 
and practically ended the rebelhon. The *' Cham- 
pion Father " did not await the Chinese attack, 
but advanced with his entire force, nearly a thou- 
sand miles, to meet Tso. He was completely de- 
feated for his pains in two battles. He escaped 
to Korla, where he died in May, 1877. With his 
demise his empire came to an end. Tso was re- 
warded with the viceroyalty of the two Kiang 
provinces. 



190 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

China has from time immemorial been subject 
to famines, and the cause has usually been too 
much or too little water; but until the famine of 
1878, during which some 8,000,000 died, their 
full significance had never been brought to the 
notice of America and Europe. For four years 
no rain had fallen in the Provinces of Shansi and 
Shensi, and the raising of the commonest necessi- 
ties of life was impossible. Li Hung Chang was 
deputed by the regents to take charge of the dying 
millions, and subscription papers were circulated 
all over the world. The foreign relief committee 
in Shanghai raised 204,560 taels, a portion of 
which it is to be hoped reached the masses, al- 
though peculation among the distributers was rife. 

In 1881 the emperor gave Korea formal permis- 
sion to contract treaties with foreign countries. 
Admiral Shufeldt, on the part of the United 
States, had, however, already entered into a treaty 
of peace, amity, and commerce with Korea, in 
1882 ; Japan, in 1876 ; and England, in 1883. 
China hoped by this concession to place Korea on 
such a basis that by means of treaties she could 
in a measure enter the family of nations, and be 
freed from all danger of Russian aggression. The 
United States so far recognized Korea as to ac- 
credit Lucius H. Foote as minister to that coun- 



WAR WITH FRANCE. 191 

try. In 1885 the Koreans made an attack on the 
Japanese legation, and drove them out of the 
country. Japan promptly demanded an apology 
and indemnity ; and an agreement was entered 
into between China and Japan that neither should 
send troops to Korea without first informing the 
other : a ridiculous engagement that led to seri- 
ous consequences. 

China had barely escaped a war with Japan 
over one of her feudatory states, when she was 
plunged into a war with France over another. 
For fully a century France had looked upon 
Annam as within her " sphere of influence," and 
French missionaries had been working among the 
Annamese with indifferent success. In 1858 
France seized Saigon, and made it her base for 
commercial operations in Cochin China. It was 
not long before complications arose between the 
invaders and the suzerain states, and in 1882 the 
French decided definitely to annex Tongkin. 
The capital town of Hanoi was captured, and 
the important towns of Sontay and Bacinh in- 
vested. Li Hung Chang urged the regents to 
make peace with France, and he was empowered 
to confer with Captain Fournier of the French 
navy. A treaty was entered into that only lacked 
the date as to when it should go into effect to make 



192 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

it perfect. As it was, the French troops tried to 
take possession of Langson, and precipitated an 
engagement with the Chinese, in which the French 
were badly defeated. This led to the reopening 
of hostilities. No one will ever know whether 
the omission of the necessary date in the treaty 
was an oversight, or another sample of Chinese 
diplomacy. General Negrier captured Langson on 
February 13, 1885, and Admiral Courbet unsuc- 
cessfully bombarded Kelung on the northern 
coast of Formosa, after which he sailed for Foo- 
chow, where he utter destroyed the Chinese fleet. 
Returning to Formosa the French admiral suc- 
ceeded, after five attempts, in reducing Kelung, 
and later occupied the Pescadores. In Tongking 
the French land forces were able to make but little 
headway against the Black Flags, and the war 
degenerated into a guerilla campaign. By this 
time both sides were thoroughly tired of the war. 
It had cost China 60,000,000 taels, and the loss of 
her Foochow fleet, and had been a heavy drain on 
the French treasury. A treaty was signed on 
June 9, 1885, that gave France the sovereignty of 
Tongking. 

The year after this treaty, China lost another 
feudatory by the occupation of upper Burmah by 
Great Britain; and on March 17, 1890, China's 



RECEPTION OF FOREIGNERS. 193 

back door was crowded open by the establishment 
of a trade route from India into Thibet. 

In 1884 Kwang Su was married to a daughter 
of the dowager empress's brother, and the foreign 
ministers took advantage of the occasion to press 
the audience question with the usual result, that 
in 1891 they were again graciously received by 
the Son of Heaven in the Palace of Tributary Na- 
tions. It was for the last time, however ; as, im- 
mediately afterwards, the diplomatic corps passed 
resolutions to forego the ceremony rather than 
submit to the indignity. This was exactly the 
show of firmness that the Chinese needed; and 
in the following year, when the Austrian min- 
ister came to present his credentials, he was 
received in one of the minoi halls of the pal- 
ace itself, as a little later was the British repre- 
sentative. The question, however, settled itself 
on the conclusion of the Japanese war, with a 
suddenness that would have been tragic had it not 
been laughable. For two hundred years Western 
diplomacy had exhausted itself in its endeavors to 
be recognized ; but when it became a matter of 
.personal interest to the Chinese, the long coveted 
privilege was granted without the asking. China 
at last condescended to recognize the equality of 
all nations at a time when she was inferior even to 



194 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

her former tributary states. In May, 1898, Prince 
Henry of Prussia was received by the emperor 
standing, and had his call returned ; and I would 
not be surprised to be told by the next distin- 
guished globe trotter that while " doing " Peking, 
he had been invited to drink tea with the August 
and only Son of Heaven. . -- 

A war between China and Japan was inevitable. 
Their hatred of each other was of no sudden 
growth, but had been cultivated for centuries. On 
the Chinese side it was an outspoken contempt 
for the " dwarfs " ; on the Japanese it was a settled 
determination to avenge a long series of insult and 
impositions. The Chinese sent troops into Korea 
in 1894, without notifying Japan according to the 
treaty of May, 1895. The Japanese were pre- 
pared, and promptly resented this last ins alt by 
sending five thousand men under General Oshima 
to the mainland. The empress rather welcomed 
the prospect of war, as a successful one would add 
luster to her sixtieth birthday, which she was pre- 
paring to celebrate with unparalleled magnificence 
in the fall of the year. The entire empire was 
" invited " to contribute generously to the fete ; 
and up to the outbreak of the war, tribute and 
presents from all the provinces were on their way 
to Peking. It was her intention to make her 



TFAR WITH JAPAN, 195 

birthday the most remarkable celebration of its 
kind in the long history of the empire. Li Hung 
Chang realized that China was not prepared for a 
war ; but Tsu Tsi was determined to chastise " the 
insolent pygmies," and at the same time become 
the Semiramis of China. 

The Japanese quietly held their ground; and 
on the 25th of July, one of their cruisers, 
the " Nanawa," encountered the chartered English 
transport " Kowshing," carrying eleven thousand 
Chinese troops, and safeguarded by two men- 
of-war approaching the Korean coast. Here, 
again, was an example of a contemptuous 
breach of the treaty of China. The captain 
of the '* Nanawa " did not hesitate ; and in less 
than an hour one of the Chinese men-of-war 
was a wreck, and the " Kowshing " had gone to 
the bottom with its human freight. On August 
1, 1894, war was formally declared; and the 
Chinese had the bad taste to refer in their royal 
proclamation to the Japanese as *'the Dwarfs." 
Both sides dispatched large reenforcements to 
Korea ; and the first encounter at Asam, in Korea, 
was the first of a series of brilliant victories that 
placed Japan among the first-class powers of the 
world. At Pingyang, on September 15, the 
Chinese were defeated with a loss of over six 



196 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

thousand men, and large quantities of arms and 
provisions were captured. Ttie remnants of their 
demoralized army fled to the north, plundering 
and terrorizing the very people whom they were 
supposed to protect from a merciless invader. 
Two days later the Japanese and Chinese fleets 
encountered each other at the mouth of the Yalu 
River. Each fleet consisted of twelve ships, 
although the Chinese was supplemented with six 
torpedo boats. The Chinese admiral, Ting, 
steamed out of the harbor ; and boldly engaged the 
enemy. The battle began about ten o'clock in 
the morning and lasted for six hours. It will 
always be historical, as being the first general 
naval battle between modern fleets. Ting was a 
brave man, and fought his ships well ; but he was 
outmaneuvered by the swifter Japanese cruisers, 
and at the end of the engagement he had lost five 
of his ships, and the balance were in full flight. 
The Japanese were so badly punished that they 
were unable to follow up their victory, and Ting 
took the remnant of his fleet into Port Arthur. 
With the Chinese fleet placed on the defensive, 
the Japanese had simply the disorganized Chinese 
land forces to deal with. Count Cayama arrived at 
Kinchow (October 24), thirty-four miles south of 
Port Arthur, and Marshal Yamagata hurried 



CAPTURE OF PORT ARTHUR, 197 

northward with his victorious army, occupied 
Wiju, crossed the Yalu, joined forces with General 
Nodzu, and on the 25th of October signally de- 
feated the Chinese at Hushan. On the 5th and 
6th of November, Kinchow and Talienwan sur- 
rendered to Oyama, and so opened the door to 
Port Arthur. Port Arthur, which was supposed 
to be, and should have been, impregnable to a land 
attack, was carried by assault on the 21st of No- 
vember, with a loss to the invaders of only four 
hundred men. The news was received all over 
the world with unbounded astonishment. Nature 
had fortified the fort, and Li Hung Chang had 
spent large sums in filling it with the most modern 
guns. Nothing but the most arrant cowardice or 
unpatriotic treachery can explain its surrender. 

Oyama did not rest on his laurels, but immedi- 
ately marched north into Manchuria, capturing 
Fuchow and Kaipingchow. The old empress 
by this time had all the glory of a foreign war 
that she cared for ; and on the advice of Li Hung 
Chang two foolish attempts were made to turn the 
war into diplomatic channels by dispatching un- 
accredited peace embassies to Japan. Quite 
rightly no attention was paid to them by the 
Japanese ; and the invaders advanced on Wei-hai- 
wei, which was guarded by what was left of 



198 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

Ting's fleet. The fortress surrendered, and its 
guns were turned on the Chinese ships, while the 
Japanese fleet under Admiral Ito blocked the har- 
bor entrance. On February 7 Ting realized that 
his cause was hopeless. He signified his intention 
to surrender, and then committed suicide. He 
was the only great character on the Chinese side 
during the shameful war, and had he lived he 
would have paid for his bravery with his life in 
Peking. Ito sent his remains in a Japanese man- 
of-war to Chefoo — awarding the just tribute of 
an honorable enemy to a brave man. 

The Dowager Empress was now thoroughly 
frightened. As the concubine of Hienfung, she 
had accompanied him in exile to Jehol in 1860, 
and she had no desire to repeat the journey after 
her thirty years of supreme pov/er. She ordered 
her favorite Li Hung Chang to proceed to Japan 
mth full plenipotentiary powers, and to conclude 
a treaty at any cost. Li told Colonel Charles 
Denby, the American minister, that he had a pre- 
sentiment that he would never return alive ; and 
his presentiment was so far verified by an attempt 
on his life by a crazy Japanese. He was shot in 
the face, and will carry the ugly scar to his grave. 
On October 17 a treaty of peace was signed by 
the contracting powers, whereby the Liatung 



TREATY WITH JAPAN. 199 

Peninsula, including Port Arthur, Formosa, and 
the Pescadores, was ceded to Japan, and a war 
indemnity of two hundred million taels was 
awarded. Although there was a strong party in 
Peking that protested against the ratification of 
the humiliating terms, the emperor signed it on 
May 8, and gave as an excuse his filial love and 
tender solicitude for the Dowager Empress, " the 
venerable lady who, if hostilities were renewed, 
and Peking threatened by the Japanese, would 
have to seek refuge in flight, and have been ex- 
posed once more to the hardships of a long and 
arduous journey." 

Russia, Germany, and France, for purely selfish 
motives, remonstrated so strongly against the 
cession of Liatung, that the Japanese foolishly 
withdrew, accepting in lieu a further indemnity 
of thirty million taels. Japan had to occupy 
Formosa by force of arms, and has virtually had 
to hold it ever since by the same means ; but the 
war was closed, and the nations involved were left 
to accommodate themselves to their new condi- 
tions. 

It soon became apparent why China's three 
European friends did not want Japan to have a 
foothold on the continent. Russia showed her 
hand first by seizing Port Arthur, although Count 



200 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

Mouravieff had positively assured the British 
government that the presence of Russian war- 
ships in Port Arthur in December, 1897, was due 
solely to the convenience of wintering there. It 
is now an open secret that the Russian admiral 
had orders to retire from Port Arthur, should Sir 
Claude INIacdonald, the British minister, decline to 
believe the fairy tale, and order a British fleet to 
the same convenient winter resort. Russia, in 
addition, demanded the right to build the Siberian 
railway through Manchuria to Vladivostock, with 
a branch line to Kirin Mukden and Port Arthur. 
France required, as her quid pro quo^ the con- 
struction of a railway to meet the French railway 
on the frontier, and so join Tongking with Nanning 
on the West River, thereby tapping the provinces 
of Yunnan and Szechuen. She also demanded 
the lease of Kwangchow on the Lienchow Penin- 
sula, opposite the Island of Hainan. Germany 
first asked certain mining and financial privileges ; 
and later, as a lesson to China that the lives of her 
missionaries must be respected. Admiral Von 
Diedrichs steamed into Kiaochow Bay, on the 
Shangtung coast, and forcibly " leased " the har- 
bor, village, and neighboring coast. Russia ob- 
tained Port Arthur and Talienwan, on the same 
liberal terms ; and England, horror-stricken at the 



LEASES AND LAND GRABS. 201 

reckless way in which her rivals hustled the 
dread Son of Heaven, made a grab for Wei-hai-wei 
and the lease of the Kowloon Peninsula opposite 
Hong Kong. 

The partition of China stopped with these 
" leases," although Italy occupied, and then asked 
for, Samun Bay. After she had surveyed the 
harbor, Italy found that she had drawn a blank ; 
the Italian minister at Peking was relieved, and 
the successor of the great Roman empire smothered 
her desire for Chinese colonies. 

The outbreak of the Spanish-American war in 
1898 drew the attention of the world from Cliina, 
and gave her for a short time a " lease " of what 
she needed very much — life. The coming of the 
Americans to the Phihppines introduced a new 
element into the Chinese question that was puz- 
zling, and the powers desisted for a time until they 
had taken our measure. The trip of Lord Charles 
Beresford through China in 1899, and his subse- 
quent visit to Washington, aroused the United 
States to the necessity of protecting our trade 
interest in China by insisting on an " open door." 

On September 6, 1899, secretary John Hay com- 
municated with the United States representatives 
in Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan, 
notifying them of the desire of the United States 



202 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

relative to the " open door " policy. Ambassador 
Choate's note to the British government succinctly 
expressed the attitude of America. 

He said: "The president understands that it is 
the settled policy and purpose of Great Britain not 
to use any privilege received from China to exclude 
any commercial rivals. The United States gov- 
ernment cannot conceal their apprehensions of the 
danger of complication arising between the treaty 
powers which may imperil the rights assured to the 
United States by treaty. The United States hope 
to retain China as an open market for the world's 
commerce, to remove dangerous sources of inter- 
national irritation, and thereby hasten united 
action by the powers at Peking to promote ad- 
ministrative reforms so greatly needed for strength- 
ening the imperial government, and maintaining 
the integrity of China, in which the United States 
beheve the whole western world is alike concerned. 
The United States believe that such a result would 
be greatly aided and advanced by declarations on 
the part of the powers claiming spheres in China, 
respecting their intentions with regard to the 
treatment of foreign trade and commerce in those 
spheres ; and the United States consider that the 
present is a very favorable moment for informing 
Great Britain of the desire of the United States 



THE "OPEN BOORr 203 

that Great Britain should make a declaration on 
her own part, and lend her powerful support in the 
effort to obtain from each power having spheres a 
declaration to the effect that it will in no wise in- 
terfere with any treaty port or any vested interest 
within any so-called sphere of interest or leased 
territory that it may have in China ; that the 
Chinese treaty tariff of the time being shall apply 
to all merchandise landed at or shipped to all 
such ports as are within such sphere, unless 
they be free ports, no matter to what nationality 
they may belong, and that duties so leviable shall 
be collected by the Chinese government ; that the 
power approached will levy no higher harbor dues 
on vessels of another nationality frequenting any 
port in such sphere than shall be levied on vessels 
of its own nationality, nor any higher railroad 
charges over lines built, controlled, or operated in 
its sphere on merchandise belonging to citizens or 
subjects of other nationalities than are levied on 
similar merchandise belonging to its own citizens." 
All the nations replied favorably ; and on March 
20, 1900, Colonel Hay was able to notify the 
United States representatives abroad that the 
powers addressed had accepted, and that he would 
consider their consent final and definite. The 
result of the negotiations may be considered a 



204 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

diplomatic triumph for America ; as Great Britain, 
Russia, Germany, and France have been at a vast 
expense of blood and treasure in opening China's 
door, and the expense of keeping it open is no 
small figure. The policing of the inland rivers, 
the maintaining of consuls wherever there is hope 
of trade, the exploring of possible trade routes, and 
the support of cruisers to guarantee life and 
property along the coast, represent an outlay in 
which the United States does not share, but by 
this agreement hopes to benefit. 

Before the Spanish-American war the powers 
would have laughed at such a one-sided proposi- 
tion ; but at this time, when no one knows what a 
day may bring forth, the powers have a right to 
feel that the victory is theirs in so much as they 
have made the United States a party to the future, 
and at the same time forced her to acknowledge 
and overlook the crimes of the past. An upris- 
ing, a rebellion, a palace intrigue, that endangers 
trade or life, means that the United States must 
send troops up the Peiho and constitute itself one 
of the policemen of China. With a base at Manila 
we are in a position to fulfill our part of the con- 
tract, but 1 fear that time may convince us that 
we have married in haste to repent at leisure. 
The "Boxer " rebellion, so-called, is but a foretaste. 



THE REIGN OF KWANG SU, 205 



X. 

THE REIGN OF KWANG SU, 

[A. D. 1898 TO A. B. 1900.] 



1 



"^HE result of the Japanese war was a bitter 
blow to the pride of the old empress and 
her favorite, Li Hung Chang. For the 
time it completely dethroned the " petticoat gov- 
ernment," and gave Kwang Su a chance to put 
into practice some of the lessons he had learned 
from his unfortunate father and the Marquis 
Tseng. He surrounded himself with men of lib- 
eral education and modern ideas, chief among 
whom was a Cantonese, Kang-Yu-Wei, who is 
known for his learning, both in western literature 
and in the classics, as the " Modern Sage." He 
was appointed Secretary of the Tsung-li-Yamen. 

The court squabbles between the young em- 
peror and the old empress came to a cUmax 
immediately after the seizure of Kiaochow; and 
on the February following all the world knew that 
Kwang Su was the real ruler of China, and that 



206 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

the long-looked-for Europeanizing of the coun- 
try was to commence. The vermillion pencil did 
not hesitate. Edict after edict appeared in its 
sacred color which threatened to do for China 
what had already been accomplished in Japan. 
No useless custom or absurd ceremony, no matter 
how hallowed by age, escaped its editing ; and 
while the literati held up their hands in horror, all 
the world laughed. 

Kwang Su deserves a place in history as the 
prize iconoclast. He sent a cold shiver down the 
spine of the literati by declaring that a man's fit- 
ness for office should not depend upon his ability 
to write a poem, or upon the elegance of his pen- 
manship. He suggested that there were other 
qualifications for office that would be taken into 
consideration other than a parrot-like acquaintance 
with the classics. He ordered the establishment 
of a university for the study of western science in 
Peking, and a board of translation for the publica- 
tion of western books in the Chinese language. A 
thorough reorganization of the army was proposed ; 
and young Manchus were urged to travel abroad, 
and learn foreign manners and customs. Liberal 
newspapers were started, and by an edict over six 
thousand officials who were holding sinecures at 
Peking were turned out of office. During Sep- 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 207 

tember, 1898, every day brought forth a new and 
startling edict regarding railways, mines, news- 
papers, manufactories ; and strangely enough, the 
young emperor over-reached himself in his enthu- 
siasm, by proposing to issue an edict forbidding 
the pigtail, and substituting European for native 
dress. This was too much. The literati argued 
that at the rate at which the emperor was going, 
it might be expected that he would do away with 
chop-sticks, and inaugurate daily baths. In truth 
the royal informer had gone too fast. In a few 
months he had managed to array against liimself 
the corrupt bureaucracy, the peculating army, 
the hide-bound literati, and lastly, he had fright- 
ened the common people. Leading and directing 
all these antagonistic elements was the crafty old 
empress dowager and her equally crafty hench- 
man, Li Hung Chang. 

A catastrophe was inevitable ; and on the 21st 
of September, 1898, the world was given to 
understand that a coup d'etat had taken place in 
Peking, and that the empress dowager had once 
more resumed the control of the government. 
Shortly afterwards, as might have been expected, 
ifc was noted in the Peking Gazette that the em- 
peror was seriously ill, and for a time it was 
thought he was dead. The foreign legations ten- 



208 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

dered the services of their physicians ; and the 
British minister was instructed to inform, " She 
who must be obeyed," that the premature death 
of the emperor would create a bad impression in 
Europe and America, and might lead to complica- 
tions. Kwang Su recovered immediately. 

Experience had taught Tsu Tsi nothing, and 
she came back into power worse than when she 
went out. Adversity had hardened her, and she 
was burning for revenge. At once she went to 
the extreme in her frantic efforts to stamp out the 
seeds of reform, and bring to death the reformers. 
Whenever she had them in her power she exe- 
cuted them without mercy; and in June, 1900, 
her minister in Washington, who had been given a 
degree of LL.D. by one of our foolish colleges, re- 
reported against certain Chinese merchants in the 
United States, whose only crimes were their sign- 
ing of a petition humbly praying that their empe- 
ror die not of " a broken heart." The wives and 
families in China of these men were imprisoned 
and robbed because of this show of patriotism on 
the part of their husbands in Chicago and San 
Francisco. If the " Boxer " rebellion, which soon 
after broke out and laid waste the country be_ 
tween Tientsin and Peking, were to be successful, 
it would be no more than the old empress should 



WILES OF THE DOWAGER, 209 

expect if she would ever stop to consider herself 
as others see her. Kang Wu Wei escaped from 
Peking, and was conveyed to Hong Kong in a 
British man-of-war. Shortly afterwards he pro- 
ceeded to Singapore, where he ran less danger 
of being kidnapped into Chinese territory. 

It took but a few days to undo all that Kwang 
Su had attempted ; and the implacable old woman 
and her faithful man " Friday," were speedily try- 
ing to make themselves believe that they were 
living in the days of the Empress Wu. In order 
to close the eyes of the foreign legation at Peking, 
or, what was more important, their mouths, Tsu 
Tsi had the supreme assurance to '' graciously " 
consent to receive the wives of the ministers in, 
audience. It is regrettable to record that the 
w^omen invited accepted with alacrity, and that a 
big social fight was made to obtain invitations for 
the wives of the secretaries of the legations as 
well. The old empress, however, would not in- 
clude them, as her game was to receive through 
the wives of the foreign ministers a recognition 
as the real ruler of China. To have made it a 
social event would have destroyed the object 
aimed at. She who was a usurper, in the very 
face of the fact that Kwang Su's wife was the 
actual empress of China, must have laughed in her 



210 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

sleeve, and regretted that it was not as easy to 
defeat the hated barbarians in war as it was in 
diplomacy. 

Yet with all her assurances and smiles, the 
dowager had never forgiven Kwang Su for the 
shock his twentieth century ideas had given her. 
She was biding her time, and carefully preparing 
for her palace coup d'etat. Early in January, 
1900, Li Hung Chang was dispatched to Canton 
as viceroy of the two Kwangs — because he was 
too famiharly known to the Western countries 
to look well as a party to an old-fashioned court 
murder. On January 24, 1900, the news was 
flashed from Peking that Kwang Su had resigned 
his crown, and that Put Sing, the infant son of 
Prince Tuan, had been recognized in his place. 
A storm of disapproval shook the empire. A few 
days later the report was sent out that Kwang Su 
had died. In this the old dowager had overreached 
herself. If she had simply started the report in 
order to feel the public pulse, and ascertain how her 
subjects would accept the death of the emperor, 
the result must have startled her more than the 
Japanese war. Even the inert mass of the Chinese 
empire was for the moment galvanized into what 
looked like opposition. The foreign ministers, or 
at least those representing the cause of order — 



PERSECUTION OF FOREIGNERS, 211 

America (Mr. Edwin H. Conger), Great Britain, 
and Germany, whose services are sometimes useful 
when France or Russia asks a little too much, 
protested; and petitions, very humbly worded 
indeed, but not altogether despised, came rumbling 
in from the provinces, and from the Chinese in 
America and Australia. Li Hung Chang, with 
his characteristic instinct for evasion, would not 
declare himself one way or the other ; and for the 
instant affairs looked very black. Nominally the 
young emperor still sat on the dishonored throne 
of his ancestors ; but everything was being done 
to lower his prestige, and to treat him as a mere 
intruder and usurper, — a course which the empress 
dowager failed to perceive would not relieve her 
from the pressure of Western civilization, but 
was actually hastening the dissolution of the em- 
pire. 

Outrages on subjects of powerful states, though 
at the time they may seem a glorious assertion of 
independence, and may for a while go unpunished, 
have in the end proved bad policy. Yet China has 
never learned by experience. Outrages of this 
sort led to the first war of 1842 and the opening 
of the five ports. A renewal of those outrages 
brought about the second and third wars, and the 
opening of the northern and Yangtsze ports. 



212 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

The massacres in Szechuen and Fulikin called for 
still further demands, and the attempts to oust 
the Japanese from Korea only ended in the loss of 
Formosa and Shing King. Outrages in Shantung 
brought the Germans ; and this led to the military 
occupation by Russia of Manchuria and Liaotung, 
the cession of Weihaiwei and Kowloon to England, 
and, as a counterpoise, of Kwangchow to France. 
All these events happened within the lifetime 
of the empress dowager, and should have been 
enough to have taught her sufficient wisdom to 
dissuade her from continuing so losing a game. 
There seems, however, to attend the old age of 
nations, as of individuals, a period of dotage, 
when old habits become tyrants, and reason grows 
too feeble to arrest the inevitable decay. When 
China was young and vigorous her envoys and 
ships were to be found all over Asia. She carried 
her trade even as far as Zanzibar and the east 
coast of Africa, and met on equal terms the Arab 
merchant, then the great trader of the world. 
She had then no pro- nor anti-foreign party, and 
the wayfarer from abroad was hospitably received 
in her ports. While such is the aspect of China 
towards foreign nations, at home the present 
pretense of government is insidiously sapping the 
foundations of law and order. It has been un- 



THE MOB IN CHINA. 213 

ceasingly fanning the flame of dissatisfaction. 
The mob in China, like that in every other coun- 
try, cares for nothing but plunder ; and it is easy 
to direct its fury against the foreigner, whether it 
be the Jew in Russia or the missionary in China. 

In the metropolitan province itself men like 
Generalissimo Junglu and Kangyi have been at 
work for years fomenting trouble, but it is in 
Shantung and Kwangtung that the effects of such 
teachings are most seriously felt. The chiefs of 
the present " Boxer " uprising are nothing more 
than disciples of the empress's favorites. They 
forget, however, that with the first taste for blood 
the mob changes from the willing tool into a wild, 
unthinking beast. A ruler like Li Hung Chang 
might be expected to have learned the first prin- 
ciples of settled government ; but affairs have 
proceeded so far that Kwangtung broke in a blaze 
of rebellion, and all authority was openly defied. 
Piracy was everywhere ; and even the presence of 
English river gunboats on the West River, above 
Canton, had little if any effect. It needed 
measures stronger than the old viceroy cared to 
incur the expense of to restore his province 
to anything Kke order. Twelve years ago the 
province of Shantung v/as probably the most 
contented of the eighteen. To-day, owing to the 



214 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

example set in Peking, it is a hotbed of factions, 
and the Imperial Government is openly defied. 
As a result, one foreigner (Rev. Mr. Brooks) has 
been barbarously murdered ; and every mail brings 
reports of the kilHng or persecuting of mission- 
aries, prospectors, and railway surveyors. 

Unfortunately China, in her long political career, 
has never evolved any self-acting check on mis- 
rule r and the sole remedy has ever been rebellion 
or conquest. A nation has the government it best 
deserves. If China were worthy of a good gov- 
ernment it would have it. Such was the deliber- 
ate statement of General Gordon on returning 
from his last visit to Peking. The position of 
affaire in Peking has not altered for the better 
since then, and to-day is not very unlike what 
it was in the last days of the Mings, when 
the progress of the Manchu arms was fostered 
more by treachery than by prowess. This state- 
ment practically brings Chinese history up to 
date of the " Boxer " uprising. Beyond that, 
in spite of all the half -known but dramatic hap- 
penings, is little more than prophecy ; and while it 
is perfectly safe to predict the future of China by 
her past, there is no value in such predictions, and 
very little of interest. Half the books that are 
being written on China to-day are made up of the 



THE ''SICK MAN OF ASIAr 215 

prophetic visions of some distinguished traveler, 
who has lived a few months or a year in her 
open treaty ports. As the " sick man of Asia," 
China has been blessed with a host of doctors, 
and one can safely predict that their prescriptions 
will certainly either kill or cure. 



216 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 



XL 

THE COMMERCIAL OUTLOOK, 



E 



■^ VERY writer on Chinese conditions de- 
votes at least one chapter to the comroer- 
^ cial outlook as he sees it, or to pointing 
out the openings for American goods in the Ori- 
ental market. For years our efficient consuls along 
the Yellow Sea have been filling the " Consular 
Reports " with the result of their careful study 
and investigations of the subject. Dr. Morrison, 
the famous commissioner of the London " Times " 
at Peking, has gone over the question again and 
again, and returned officials have delivered hun- 
dreds of lectures before chambers of commerce 
and boards of trade in America. During the past 
three years, I have written enough on this subject 
to fill many chapters, and all of us have said or 
written more or less the same tiling. 

Trade in China is not to be picked up like gold 
nuggets in the Klondike. The Chinese will need 



TRADE IN CHINA. 217 

to be educated to the use of American prints and 
labor-saving machinery, just as their taste was 
cultivated for Indian opium, before we can sell 
them the products of our looms and rolling-mills. 
The American house that sends an agent out here 
with a box of samples, and expects to work up a 
business that will demand the services of a fleet of 
steamships, on the mere investment of a ticket 
from San Francisco to Hong Kong, will be sadly 
discouraged with the results. In this story of the 
history of China, I hope I have impressed the 
reader with at least one Chinese characteristic, — 
conservativeness. It is all very well to deal in 
big round figures, and to make glittering promises 
as to future trade possibilities ; but judging the 
future by the past, it will be some years before we 
can persuade the Chinaman to discard the chop- 
sticks for the knife and fork, or his cheap, comfort- 
able dress for New England shoddy. In three 
hundred years of intercourse with Europe and 
America, we have been able to introduce three 
articles, — opium, kerosene, and flour, — although 
there is at present a very respectable trade done 
in steel and prints. 

There is no possible way of carrying the Chi- 
nese market by storm. It must be studied, nursed, 
and coaxed. The rich Chinese appreciate Pari- 



218 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

sian novelties and jewelry, and are large buyers 
of music-boxes, mechanical toys, phonographs, 
fancy watches, ornamental clocks, etc. ; but they 
have an utter contempt for American beds or 
steam-drills. In order to sell carriages, the Chi- 
nese must first be taught the advantages of good 
roads. It is not because of a lack of example 
that they do not build them ; but they have been 
able to get along very well for three thousand 
years without them, and unless they are forced to 
construct them, they will probably continue in the 
good old way. The splendid roads that the Eng- 
lish are building in the new Kowloon territory- 
run flush up to the Chinese quarter, but not an 
inch farther. 

The commercial conversion of China will be 
much easier to accomplish than its religious con- 
version ; but it cannot be brought about by a flood 
of circulars in the English language, or by flowery 
editorials in the American newspapers. So far, 
the Americans have not taken hold of the trade 
problem in a sensible, determined manner ; and I 
do not believe that we ever will, until the time 
arrives when we must have a foreign market for 
our surplus productions. To-day prices are so 
high in America, both for manufactured articles 
and for labor, that there is little or no incentive 



FOREIGN MISCONCEPTIONS. 219 

to compete for the Chinese market against the 
English and Germans. 

Our chambers of commerce urge the building of 
gigantic trunk-lines from one end of China to the 
other, as though it were a simple proposition 
that required only money ; and they naturally 
urge that China will, of course, be delighted to 
have any country or syndicate expend ^100,000,000 
for their benefit. They forget, however, that every 
concession to build a railroad, to navigate a ship 
in the inland waters, or to even buy Chinese pro- 
ducts, has been obtained at the muzzle of the 
gun. The history of the little railroad from 
Wusung to Shanghai, a distance of twelve miles, 
is an object lesson in Chinese appreciation of 
Western efforts to introduce Western methods. 
The completion of the enterprise in 1875 was 
heralded all over Europe as the entering wedge 
into the Chinese markets. During its building 
the Chinese officials did not object, as they did 
not realize what was taking place ; but as soon as 
the train began to run, then they understood what 
the foreigners meant by an " entering wedge." A 
Chinaman was found who, for a small sum to his 
family, was willing to throw himself under the 
wheels of the cars. The Literati immediately de- 
manded a life for a life ; the minds of the vil- 



220 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

lagers were filled with the absurd tale that the 
noise of the engine disturbed the " Fuiigsui," or 
spirits of the air ; and, crazed with fear, they cre- 
ated such a series of disturbances that the only 
way out was to sell the railroad to the Chinese 
government, who immediately tore up the rails, 
and obliterated the roadbed. 

There have been two short lines built in China 
since ; but the only successful railroad building is 
done by the Russians, and they are backed by the 
entire force of the Russian army and navy. Con- 
fucius has warned his countrymen against new 
devices from abroad, and the people will have to 
be educated away from Confucianism before they 
will of their own notion take kindly to railroads 
in China. The English made the usual mistake 
in submitting to the prejudices of the Chinese. 
Had Sir Thomas Wade insisted on the integrity of 
the little Wusung line, and a gunboat stationed 
off Shanghai, Confucius's maxim would have been 
cast into limbo, and railroads would to-day spider- 
web China from end to end. 

While we have been idly dreaming of railroad 
building and scrambling for mining concessions in 
the unopened empire, the Germans have come 
into the field, gone to work intelligently, and 
created a market for themselves. It is a peculiar 



ADVERTISING AND SAMPLES. 221 

market, and not one that they themselves prob- 
ably expected to find ; but it was the outgrowth 
of the wants of the people. For example, they 
saw that they could soon create a demand for 
cheap lamps. The Chinese were quick to recog- 
nize the benefits of American kerosene ; and the 
Standard Oil Company might have doubled their 
export if they had years ago given away one 
hundred thousand cheap tin lamps like those the 
Germans are now selling for from fifty cents to 
one dollar and a half (Mexicans). 

The advertising of Chinese goods by the Chinese 
is, whenever possible, done by free distribution of 
samples. A drug-store opens in Canton, and starts 
out to sell the same old panacea under a new name. 
The first year they may spend ten thousand dollars 
(Mexicans) in the distribution of samples. In fact, 
they really invest all their capital in this kind of 
advertising. Their stock is almost worth nothing, 
but I know of drug-firms in Canton that could 
sell their sign-boards (trade-marks) for one hun- 
dred thousand taels at any time, who commenced 
in this way a few years ago. The Chinese never 
buy without first testing; and if the article is 
satisfactory, it requires an earthquake to turn 
them to a rival article ; not even a big saving in 
price will do it. A number of years ago the 



222 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

" eagle brand " of American milk became popular 
among the Chinese of Canton and Hong Kong. 
To-day it is manufactured in Canton by the thou° 
sands — the milk, label, trade-mark, all, being coun- 
terfeited. The milk is diluted and poor ; but the 
Chinese keep on buying, because of the " eagle " 
on the label. 

The Germans are supplying the Chinese with 
lamps, cheap tools, buttons, glass, jewelry, thread, 
queuestrings, watches, powder, and guns. A lead- 
ing firm in Hong Kong offered to place an order 
for fifty thousand dollars' worth of powder with 
any American firm that would sell as good and 
cheap a gunpowder as the Germans. I took sam- 
ples, and sent them on to Cahfornia, and obtained 
samples and prices in return. The quality of the 
American powder was all right, but the price 
was twenty per cent too high. The manufacturer 
wanted protection prices in a free port. We for- 
get in America that, if we wish to sell in these 
markets, we have got to compete with free-trade 
countries and with free-trade prices. For which 
reason, I repeat, we will not do much more than 
talk, until we get to the point of needing a foreign 
market to absorb our surplus. As yet the Ameri- 
can merchants are not in earnest ; and the talk of 
our doing in the next five years a trade with China 



COMMERCIAL COMMISSIONS. 223 

amounting to two hundred and fifty million dol- 
lars a year sounds well, but it is sheer nonsense. 

The report of a commercial commission will not 
contain anything that has not been said and resaid 
by the consuls of all nations during the past ten 
years, or more than was lately reported by the 
commission from the Philadelphia Museum. If 
any commission is to be sent to China, it should 
be a political one, a committee from Congress, 
whose recommendations would be accepted in 
America, and whose opinion would be feared in 
China. Lord Charles Beresford's mission, al- 
though not political, was accepted as such by the 
Chinese ; and his voice in parliament was re- 
spectfully listened to, and his advice followed. 
On two occasions — -once on his outward, and 
once on his return trip — I went carefully over 
with him the results of his investigations; and 
his summing up of the entire trade situation was 
simply what every foreigner knows in China, — 
" the fear of the warship is the beginning of 
trade." 

You can't sell goods if the Chinese won't look 
at them. The West River, from Canton to Nan- 
king, was opened to foreign trade three years ago ; 
but the Chinese have hedged it around with so 
many petty restrictions, and permitted it to be- 



224 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

come the haunt of pirates, that, so far, they have 
been able to defeat the object of the treaty. The 
British are forced to keep three gunboats patrol- 
ling the three hundred miles between Canton and 
Wuchow, in order to protect what little trade they 
have. In the early part of 1898 the officials 
found that the people were consuming large quan- 
tities of American kerosene oil, and that the busi- 
ness had so grown that a small American steamer 
was daring to make regular trips between Hong 
Kong and Wuchow. The Chinese could not, 
under the treaty, forbid the import of foreign 
goods, so they caused it to be known that if any 
of the oil w^as spilled on the ground it would 
ruin the crop. A panic ensued among the rus- 
tics ; and to allay the excitement, the viceroy was 
asked to prohibit the importation of oil as a war 
measure. For a time the people returned to the 
candle-wick, dipped in a saucer of peanut oil; 
but the contrast was too great ; and as there had 
been no failure of crops, they so clamored for 
kerosene that the edict was revoked. 

About the same time the Italian consul, who 
was a merchant-consul of Hong Kong, established 
an agency for the sale of all kinds of Italian goods 
in Wuchow. His consular title protected his go- 
down; and the first year, while he was getting 



POSITION OF IMPORTERS, 225 

established, and really losing money, no oppo- 
sition was shown to his enterprise. The end of 
the second year found him opening a lucrative 
trade witii a net profit for the year of seventeen 
thousand dollars (Mexicans). Immediately petty 
persecutions of all kinds commenced. At the 
beginning of the third year the head of the firm 
resigned his consular functions, whereupon a para- 
graph appeared in the Chinese papers of Hong 
Kong, that he had been dismissed from office in 
disgrace, and warning all Chinese against doing 
business with him. The article, as was afterwards 
proven in the Hong Kong courts, was inspired by 
the Wuchow officials, thoroughly frightened the 
Chinese, and the Italian house was compelled to 
take up its agency. A suit was brought in the 
Hong Kong Supreme Court for Ubel, and a judg- 
ment was awarded the ItaKan. 

These examples might be multiplied by hun- 
dreds, but they go to show the position Chinese 
take toward foreign imports. They are not stand- 
ing with outstretched hands praying for our canned 
asparagus and our high silk hats, as our news- 
papers and orators picture, nor will junketing 
commissions bring about a desire for them. The 
best advice I can give to merchants who honestly 
wish to compete for China's trade, is to imitate 



226 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

the methods of the old-established English and 
German firms. Gunboats, earnestness, diplomacy, 
will give us our place in the Chinese market. 

Li Hung Chang grew very pathetic in picturing 
the sorrows we are causing his people by exclud- 
ing them from America, and especially the Philip- 
pine Islands, forgetting or ignoring the fact that 
China is a sealed nation to the American. There 
are seventy thousand Chinese in San Francisco 
alone, against three thousand whites of all nation- 
alities, in all China outside of the treaty ports. 
Let Li open his country to the world, and then he 
may talk of " invidious distinctions." The life of 
a foreigner is unsafe ten miles from Canton, and 
yet the viceroy dwelt with sad emphasis on the 
woes of a few laundrymen who were snow-balled 
in San Francisco by some children during the one 
fall of snow of the year. During my call on the 
prefect of Fatshan, a city of two millions, twenty 
miles from Canton, I was guarded by one hundred 
and fifty soldiers armed with mausers, and the 
viceroy heaved a big sigh of relief when I re- 
turned to Canton alive and uninjured. 

China should not be permitted to continue a 
hermit nation in this twentieth century. If the 
concert of nations agrees to preserve its integrity, 
let them first force open the door, and then nail it 



LET IN THE SUNLIGHT, 227 

back to the wall, so that the pure sunlight of modern 
civilization can pour in. Then, and not until 
then, will the boasted " open-door " policy mean 
anything, and all trade will have a fair field 
without fear or favor. 



228 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 



XIL 

CANTON, THE TYPICAL CITY, 

CANTON in China — the China of to-day 
and the China of a thousand years. The 
post-office address of Hong Kong is 
"China;" but it is no more the real thing than 
is Singapore or " Chinatown " in San Francisco. 

I had read of Canton with its crowded streets ; 
I had heard of Canton with its smells, with its 
execution ground, its pagoda, its yamens, and of 
shameen ; but who can describe Canton as it is ? 
No one — not even the kodak. Yet this wonderful 
city is less than a hundred miles up the broad 
Pearl from Hong Kong and English civilization. 
Thousands of tourists visit it yearly, and a hue of 
Mississippi passenger steamers daily ply between 
the two antagonistic civilizations. 

We boarded one evening one of the big side- 
wheelers, that had come up from New Orleans, 
around the Horn ; we were prepared to be disap- 



THE APPROACH TO CANTON. 229 

pointed, to be disgusted, to put up with whatever 
came in our way, but we did not dare hope for 
either amusement or instruction. We thought 
we knew what to expect. 

The evening sun was lying full in the mouth of 
the sulphur channel as we boarded the big side- 
wheeler, " Honan," and slowly worked ahead 
among a wilderness of junks and house-boats. 
The evening gun heralded the approach of less 
gorgeous color in the channel ahead, and lights 
began to flicker in the fishing- villages on either 
hand. We drew out our chairs to the deck and 
enjoyed it all, — the soft night breeze laden now 
and again with puffs of burning joss-sticks, the 
purpling twilight full of strange moving objects, 
the islands like huge jade-stones floating upon 
a faintly moonlit sea, and the sense that with 
each churn of the twin-wheels we were drawing 
nearer the heart of the least understood empire on 
earth. Here we were on the other side of the 
ball, just as we imagined we would be in our school^ 
days should we dig a well straight down, down, 
until we struck daylight, quite the same as the 
irreverent oil-prospector in Pennsylvania painted 
above his derrick, " We're going to drill till we 
strike oil, hell, or China." In our geographies 
there was a wood-cut of a Chinese mandarin, in 



230 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

flowing robes, walking sedately by the side of 
two naked coolies carrying boxes of tea on a pole 
between them. It had been my ambition as a boy, 
to slip up behind that mandarin, and snip off his 
luxuriant queue with a pair of scissors. 

As we steamed into the entrance of the great 
river the famous Bogue forts loomed above us on 
either hand. For centuries they awed the navies 
of the Western World; but after Captain Elliot 
had dropped a few hundred pounds of British iron 
into their midst, they lost their invulnerable char- 
acter, and became but mild sport in the hands of 
of succeeding fleets. American engineers and 
American cannon could give them back their de- 
parted prowess, and again their ramparts would 
command the entrance to the fertile plains of the 
Kwang-tung province. The old walls of brick and 
mortar that have been thrice battered, ramble up 
and down the precipitous sides of the hills, and 
preserve the pictures queness of the Bogue, and 
recall the days of the East India Company. 

Here and there a fine six- or nine-storied pagoda 
rises above the interminable fields of rice, as use- 
less as the ramparts of the Bogue, but answering 
the same purpose. They were originally erected 
as an abode for the spirits of the air, but once 
finished they were left for the spirits to do their 



RIVER LIFE, 231 

own cleaning and housekeeping. The ones we in- 
vaded in Canton had not been set to rights since 
the days of the Ming dynasty. Our first surprise 
came when we were within a few miles of Canton. 
We flattered ourselves that we had seen high-class 
river-life in Japan, Shanghai, and Hong Kong ; 
but here again our pride went before a fall. We 
entered a wilderness of boats, the homes of three 
hundred thousand people, — streets of boats and 
miles of boats. Sampans, express-boats, flower- 
boats, junks, fish-boats, house-boats, and man- 
wheel-boats. We never tired of watching these 
last. They were big wedge-shaped cargo lorchas, 
fifty or more feet long. Across the stern swung a 
great paddle-wheel, which was worked by forty or 
fifty naked slaves on a treadmill. The workers 
are locked in a cage ; and like the prisoners on 
the treadmills they could only keep on walking, 
walking, mile after mile — sometimes one way, 
sometimes the other, as came the word of com- 
mand. It was wonderful how they dodged here 
and there, forward and backward, elbowing down 
a long lane of boats, and backing up to a wharf. 
A mandarin man- wheel-boat dashed by with a 
clash of gongs and a salvo of yells. Yellow and 
red dragon flags bedecked it, and through the open 
bull's-eye windows we caught a glimpse of black- 



232 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

wood and Chinese gilding, stone pictures, paper 
screens. Ranged along the bank were the flower- 
boats, ornately carved and resplendent in green 
and gold, — the homes of women who are not per- 
mitted to live within the city walls. 

Nearly everything in the Hong Kong market 
comes from Canton. As we stood on the deck of 
the " Honan " watching the river life, we noticed 
nearing us below a line of boats, deep sunk in 
the water. In a moment they were fastened to 
the steamer, the flooring of each thrown back, ex- 
posing as many floating fish-ponds. There were 
live fish of all sizes and all shapes, from the min- 
now-like whitebait to big red fellows that required 
all the agility and strength of their captors to 
manage. Each boat was divided in three com- 
partments. Then commenced a scene of well- 
ordered confusion. The naked coolies stood waist 
deep in the chaos of struggling, writhing fish, fill- 
ing basket after basket, pitching it to their mates 
in the bow, who in turn tossed it to the coolies 
above, and from there into a tank of fresh water. 
The fish arrived eight hours later a little seasick 
and shopworn, but alive for tlie Hong Kong- 
market. 

From a distance, or from a point of vantage. 
Canton is one vast sea of roofs. Not a street, and 



TEN-STORIED PAWNSHOPS. 233 

only here and there a clump of trees, break the 
endless glaze of its tiled roofs. The only objects 
that rise above the expanse are the great ten-sto- 
ried square granite pawnshops, — veritable strong- 
holds where the rich deposit their jewels and 
clothing, and the poor sell their precious bits of 
jade. They are warehouses and pawnshops in 
one, and are protected from mobs by guards on 
the roof armed with gigantic syringes and buckets 
of vitriol. 

I dread to invade Canton with the pen, as I 
must confess I feared the first plunge into it with 
my chair. My description must fall as far short 
of the reality as my wildest imagination did of the 
maelstrom that I found myself in, fifty steps from 
the Shameen gate. 

When we speak of " narrow streets," the com- 
parison that comes to the mind is some of the old 
cow-paths of Boston, the alleys or lanes off Cheap- 
side and the Strand in London, or possibly the 
Juden-Stras^e of Frankfort, or some Continental 
city. I was prepared for narrow streets ; but I 
had no idea that when our chair crossed the little 
bridge through the guarded iron gates that pro- 
tect Shameen, the little island refuge of the Euro- 
peans, and entered what seemed to be the door of 
a house, that I was traversing a hona fide street. 



234 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

The chair was a few inches wider than my body, 
and yet I had to keep my elbows close to my 
sides to keep them out of the shops on either 
side. Mark Twain has remarked that you could 
not throw a brick-bat in Rome without breaking 
a church window; but in Canton you have to 
choose your place to knock the ashes off your 
cigar, or they will alight in a dish of soy or dried 
duck on the one hand, or a pile of wonderfully 
wrought silk embroidery on the other. The shops 
have no windows or doors. From your chair you 
can pick their goods up on either side. Once in 
a while a sickly pencil of sunlight finds its way 
down through the little space above our heads, 
more seldom a breath of fresh air. Lacquered 
signs vidth golden legends hang downward bearing 
the mottoes or trade-marks of the shops, — " Ever- 
lasting Love," " Benevolence and Love," " Ten 
Thousand-fold Peace," " Thousand Beatitudes," 
"The Saluting Dragon," "The Dragon is Re- 
pose," etc., — legends meant to entice the buyers, 
and blind the spirits to the words that are said 
and the things that are done within. The Chi- 
nese credit their gods with the attributes of men. 
I say gods, for Chinese, whether they are styled 
Buddhist or Taoist, are as pantheistic as the old 
Greeks. They have gods for all wants ; and a new 



SIGNBOARDS. 235 

one is born to suit any new demand. A China- 
man will lay as clever plans to cheat or fool some 
particular god as to blind the eyes of a rival firm. 
When the typhoon signal is up on the Kowloon 
peninsula across from Hong Kong, dozens of little 
paper junks will be thrown overboard to float 
gayly away on the crest of the wave. It is to 
fool the god of the storm into thinking each tiny 
counterfeit presentment is the original ; so he will 
satisfy his wrath on it while the master of the 
real junk sails safely away, laughing slyly at the 
impotent lashing of the tricked monster. 

These Canton sign-boards hang down as thick 
as stalactites, and keep one eternally dodging as 
you go swiftly along the streets. At points the 
so-called lanes open up to a width of six feet, wide 
enough for two chairs to pass ; but usually in one 
street the chairs all go in the same direction, 
while in a parallel one they go in the other. The 
thousands of pedestrians hug the side walls as we 
pass, or crowd into an open shop. 

If we wish to turn about, it is necessary to in- 
vade one of these shops with our chairs, and swing 
it carefully around ; and if we wish to stop, our 
coolies, with great shouting and gesticulating, halt 
the always onward procession while we descend ; 
then our chairs go on a block or more to an open 



236 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

space where they can be clear of the marchers. 
The fronts of the silver and silk shops are pro- 
tected by heavy wooden bars set in the sill and 
lintel like stancheons in a cattle stable. One of 
these is removed to admit us, and put quickly back 
in place. A *' sea of upturned faces," is jammed 
against and between the bars, and watches every 
movement. The shops are all alike, from the en- 
trance, possibly ten feet by ten with joss altar in 
the rear ; but in the larger shops you pass back of 
the altar, and enter the real show-rooms, large, 
roomy, and cool, away from the awful din of the 
congested street. There is nothing to see, — every- 
thing neatly folded, and placed away in locked 
cupboards. You ask for silk, embroideries, fur, 
silver, ivory, jade, and a door opens, and you are 
deluged with the wealth of the Idngs, and at such 
ridiculous prices that you spend every cent. In 
some of the shops you go up two and three stories 
into sunlit rooms, full of beautiful Canton ware, 
rare Kienlung vases, crackle-jars, fire-color porce- 
lain josses, china dragons. 

It is the 'street-life however, that is the most 
fascinating, the most appalling. Thousands of 
dried ducks, looking as though they had gone 
through a letter-press, hang above your head for 
a mile. Restaurants, butcher-shops, silk-stores, 



STREET LIFE, 237 

blacksmiths' shops, bamboo-workers, blackwood 
furniture " go-downs," shoe-marts, image-makers, 
ivory-carvers, book-stalls, jade-stone rooms, second- 
hand-clothes houses, rattan-factories, and every- 
thing rub shoulders, and carry on business in 
peace of mind and a tremendous noise. Crowds 
follow you everywhere for miles. Be-di-aggled, 
dirty, red-coated soldiers of the viceroy or Tartar 
general's yamen desert their posts to join the 
procession. Our coolies go swiftly on, yelling 
and expostulating, sometimes seemingly to their 
own destruction, in the " camel's eye " of the old 
walls, sometimes through a crowd that it would 
not seem that a respectable fly would attempt, but 
always on, for it is our only salvation. 

It gives one the horrors to think of being de- 
serted in the heart of the city. You could wander 
until the gray hairs came, without ever finding 
your way out. There is no such thing as a straight 
line, or a chance to take your bearing from the 
sun. It is a bedlam, a babel, a chaos, a lunatic 
asylum, in one, and yet everyone is going sedately 
about on his own business. The first day I said 
I could wander forever through these wonderful 
thoroughfares ; the second day my ears ached, and 
my brain was dizzy. I was glad to return to the 
European city of refuge, Shameen. 



238 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

Shameen is an artificial oval island, a half a 
mile long and some three hundred yards in 
breadth. It is made up of the English and French 
concessions. Its south bund bounds the harbor, 
and a deep stone-lined canal separates it from the 
city. Two iron bridges with heavy gates connect 
it with the mainland, and a guard of Chinese 
soldiers protect it night and day. No Chinaman, 
unless he has a pass, is allowed to cross ; at six 
o'clock every night, and again at nine the heavy 
gong beats ; there is a blare of trumpets ; a 
cannon fires ; the gates are closed, and the for- 
eingner lies down to sleep as safe as though he 
were in Hong Kong or New York. The little 
settlement is as beautiful as a suburb on the 
Hudson, — broad walks shaded with Banyan-trees, 
pretty gardens, broad tennis-courts, a bicycle 
track, and handsome brick houses, make one forget 
China. The trees are full of wild pigeons and 
ring-doves, thrushes and blackbirds; and the air is 
melodious with the twittering of the fungilla, and 
the whistle of the bittern, while sparrows flutter 
from covert to covert. The history of Shameen 
is the history of Canton for the past two hundred 
years, and in a large measure the history of Hong 
Kong. But what was once a prison is now a de- 
lightful park, a preserve for our own race. 



THE GODS' ACCOUNT-BOOK. 239 

In spite of appearances we soon found that we 
were not wandering aimlessly through this inter- 
minable network of streets. We had begun to 
think that the sights of Canton were kingfisher 
workers, rice-paper studios, and a maze of smells, 
when our chairs were set down before some pon- 
derous gates that swung in the wind, and (so 
they were labeled) protected from the rain a col- 
lection of the halt and the blind. 

The cold weather was coming on, and with it 
the season of Chinese New Year, and the beggars 
were swarming in from the country districts. A 
few rods along the wall sat a coolie with a bag 
the size of a flour-sack, full of copper cash, tied 
up in bunches of ten. A line of beggars had 
formed before him, and as they passed he put into 
each outstretched hand one of the bunches. He 
was one of the retainers of a rich merchant or 
mandarin, who was desirous of " laying up benevo- 
lence for himself." He cared nothing for the 
beggars, and might the next hour trample them 
down with his horse ; but the Chinese believe 
that their gods keep an account-book with debit 
and credit sides. Every good act counterbalances 
a bad one, so in the winter months they lay in a 
stock of credits for the year's use by distributing 
" cash " and rice to the beggars. Every Chinaman 



240 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

keeps a ledger on his own account, for fear the 
god will overlook a good deed or so ; and when 
he discovers his credits running low, he sends out 
a runner to a temple gate to lay up more merit. 
There is where a kodak would have been useful. 
The little comedy made us forget for the moment 
that we were standing at the dragon gate of the 
world famed " Examination Hall " of Canton, 
where the triennial examinations for the degree of 
bachelor of arts take place. Next to Peking 
this was the greatest university in the world ; 
more students meet within its courts and stone 
cells than in the halls and corridors of Harvard, 
Yale, Oxford, and all the big universities of 
America and England put together. Within its 
precincts issues affecting, in a greater or less de- 
gree, the destinies of the empire are determined. 
Every male, rich or poor, humble or great, may 
try, at the expense of the state, for the coveted 
degree of " Ku-yan " (A.B.). Among the twenty 
thousand are striplings and their fathers, boys of 
eighteen and sires of eighty. 

There are no dormitories to the university. 
The student may study wherever he listeth, at the 
viceroy's literary club, or in the hovel, and come 
up for his examination whenever he feels qualified. 
He may try as often as he chooses, but the rewards 



THE EXAMINATION HALL. 241 

are glittering enough to cause everyone of the thou- 
sands of stone cells that line the broad granite 
boulevard to be taken. The successful candidates 
are given government employment, while the 
three highest are, in addition to rank and position, 
awarded settled incomes, so that they are free to 
continue their studies if they do not care for 
political preferment. There is no progression, no 
advancement, nothing modern in this university. 
The themes and questions are from the classics, 
the same to-day as a hundred years ago, the same 
as five hundred. The honor man, who for the 
time being is greater than the viceroy, knows the 
" Confucian Analects," " The Doctrine of the 
Man," the book of " Mencius " the "■ Ti King," by 
heart ; he is able to locate and bound the route of 
Confucius' travels, and explain the superstitions 
of the stars ; but he never heard of New York, nor 
has the faintest idea of the law of gravitation or 
the physical geography of the earth. The chances 
are, if he came from the interior of China, that he 
is ignorant of the opium war, the Japanese war, 
and fondly believes that all kings are still paying 
homage to his emperor. 

A high stone wall incloses the university, from 
the dragon gate to the quarter of the examiners ; 
and from the yamen of the viceroy stretches a 



242 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

broad stone causeway, at right angles to which 
are closely packed streets or lanes of small open 
brick-built cells, measuring five and a half feet 
long, three feet eight inches broad, by six feet 
high. In these cells, which contain a bare wooden 
bench on the one side and a shelf on the other, 
the student must stay night and day, for from 
two to three weeks, writing on his themes, and 
answering questions. He is allowed to come out 
upon the central promenade three times a day to 
cook rice and get water ; but most of the students 
bring their provisions already cooked, so as to 
save time. 

The examinations take place in the fall; the 
weather is hot, the air from the surrounding city 
fetid ; twenty thousand men are crowded in a space 
like cattle in a stable ; and every day one to a dozen 
workers break down, and have to be carried out- 
side the gates. There are always a number of 
deaths, and the strain and the heat require 
physical staying qualities as well as mental. 

The viceroy's temporary yamen is spacious, but 
far from attractive when unused. We wandered 
about as freely as the trains of beggars and pariah 
dogs would permit, and we had to accept on faith 
the statement of our scrofulous cicerone, that the 
yamen was very gorgeous during examination time. 



THE TAMEN, 243 

All the public buildings in China are erected 
with the idea that they are to last forever, and 
that any repairs or house-cleaning, beyond the re- 
newal of the oiled paper of the windows, is a sin- 
ful extravagance. Nothing but fire could ever 
clean Canton. 

We stopped before the yamen of the Tartar 
major-general. The street here was a httle broader, 
and before the palace-gate were heaps of offal and 
refuse on which a corps of red-coated brigands 
were gambling and quarreling. We entered, 
stepping over an old hag who was skinning a cat, 
entered a dirty court-yard inhabited by beggars, 
soldiers, and smells, through another gate into an 
inner court, around which were a row of offices 
for minor officials. We were allowed to go no 
farther. A mandarin came out from beyond the 
inner court, immaculately dressed in flowing silk 
skirts, and passed us by without bestowing a 
glance in our direction. Our mob of begging fol- 
lowers opened for him to pass, but gave him no 
more attention than he gave us. 

The yamen was typical of the empire. A 
British army officer who was with the army that 
captured Peking, and entered the emperor's palace 
in the " Pink City," told me that he expected at 
last to see something of the magnificence that 



244 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

rumor claimed surrounded the sacred person of 
the emperor. He found the same dirt, squalor, 
disorganization, and lack of even the comforts, on 
a grand scale, that he liad grown familiar with in 
the yamens and temples of Canton and Nanking. 
The Chinese lay out their palaces on a magnifi- 
cent scale. They take acres of ground in the 
heart of a city where there is no ground to spare for 
respectable streets. The eaves, angles, and corners 
are filled with the most expensive and most " ar- 
tistic " porcelain gargoyles, josses, holy men, and 
devils. Whole scenes from the life of Buddha, in 
beautiful " five-colored ' porcelain, fill the sides of 
the wall. Court scenes, bits in Nirvanah, corners 
in heaven, peeps into hell, are pictured with the 
wonderful exactness of detail, and scrupulous 
nicety as to finish, that distinguish the Chinese 
artist. The gates of the yamen are wonderfully 
and fearfully carved, and heroic-sized gods, look- 
ing the picture of the giant in " Jack-and-the- 
Beanstalk," grin at you from either side. Every- 
thing is done that money, labor, and Chinese taste 
can accomplish ; and then these princely yamens, 
in every instance, are left to go to decay, the courts 
to become a dumping-ground for the inmates, the 
garden to be used for the same purpose, until 
everything becomes so filthy that an American 



THE LITERART CLUB, 245 

would not make butter from cows stabled within 
the viceregal precincts. 

The strange thing is, that of all classes, the 
Chinese seem to be utterly unconscious of the in- 
congruity of it all. At the viceroy's " Literary 
Club " or the Public Library, where the students 
are supposed to read and study for the examina- 
tions, we stood on the veranda above an artisti- 
cally designed bevy of miniature lakes and moun- 
tains. Our guide, who for twenty-five years had 
been interpreter of the U. S. Consulate, pointed 
out with great zest the materials of which the 
mountains, grottos, and caves were made, as having 
been brought over one thousand miles on the backs 
of coolies from a sacred mountain in western China, 
— he claimed that each stone was worth its weight 
in silver, — (it was lava) ; he called our attention 
to other things, but he never once noticed that 
in the shallow water that was so expensively 
framed was a dead dog, a cart-load of empty cans, 
broken jars, and a thick covering of oily green 
slime. The fact that the money had been spent 
on these acres of rambling buildings was enough. 
We did not find one student or reader ; but this did 
not surprise us, as we never found a worshiper in 
any of the temples in all China. 

The temples are in no way comparable to those 



246 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

of Japan. They are simply vast collections of 
courts and quarters for the priests. The central 
temple is decorated about its eaves in the same 
style as the yamens. There is no pretense of 
architectural decoration or beauty ; the floors are 
of hard-beaten earth or flagstones, usually covered 
with drying mats or paper; the images of Buddha 
and the rest — usually gigantic in size, and covered 
with goldleaf, — are arranged round the walls, 
with here and there a punk-stick burning before 
a favorite. The priests are almost as ragged, just 
as dirty, and greater beggars than the professionals 
that crowd about the gates. As you go about their 
damp, dimly lighted strongholds, they follow you 
closely with an always outstretched dirty palm. 
There is practically no religion in China. If a 
Chinaman is in trouble, or needs help or " face," 
he goes to the nearest temple, and prays to any one 
of the five hundred idols that has the best reputa- 
tion. If his petition is not answered, he tries an- 
other, and so on — Buddists and Taoists, or even 
the gilded image of INIarco Polo, it is all the same 
to him. If his prayer is finally answered, he be- 
comes, for the time being, a patron of the temple 
of that particular god. Yet everyone studies the 
Confucius classics from childhood, and quotes 
their beautiful epigrams on all occasions. 



THE EMPEROR'S TEMPLE. 247 

Chin Sine, our enthusiastic guide, realized at 
last that we were tired of his temples ; and when 
the mistress positively refused to enter " The 
Temple of the God of Literature " he begged 
earnestly that for the good name of the great city, 
we should see " The Emperor's Temple or Ten 
Thousand Years Palace." Against our better 
judgment we weakly consented. I hate to explore 
a city, and then have some one exclaim, when I am 
on the other side of the world, " Did you see the 
Emperor's Temple at Canton ? " "We came to the 
usual brick wall lined with beggars and mandarins' 
servants " laying up merit," and the usual monu- 
mental arch, which the guide-books style "grand" 
and " lofty," with the usual iron-studded gates, 
aswing, and the usual dead dog. Within the 
gates is an open field of some two acres, where 
the retinue wait once a year, on New Year's Day, 
and pray, while the local representative of the 
" Son of Heaven " prostates himself before the 
carved facsimile of the dragon throne. The court 
is overgrown with weeds, and strewn with empty 
cans, and the royal altar is of the flimsiest painted 
wood. The insignia and standards of royalty that 
flank this pretentious erection are such as would 
cast ridicule on a cheap Chinese theatrical com- 
pany. Even the celebrated tablet that bears the 



248 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

inscription " May the Emperor reign ten thousand 
years, ten thousand times ten thousand years," is 
no improvement on the millions of sign-boards 
among which we had been dodging during the 
past few days. " Everything," " very big," I 
assured Chue Sine, and he departed satisfied. 
We went to no more temples. 

Our chair stopped before an open space, some 
twenty-five yards by ten yards, right in the heart 
of the city. It was open to the sky only ; the 
ground was covered with rude earthenware ves- 
sels drying in the sun. One of the potters rushed 
forward, motioning us frantically to follow him 
in preference to any of his co-laborers. We did 
so, stepping over the half-baked clay pots. From 
underneath a 'pile of rubbish he brought forth a 
skull, which he displayed with one hand, while the 
other was outstretched for the usual " cumshaw." 

" What is this all about ? " I inquired of my in- 
terpreter, who was smiling blandly from among a 
body-guard of naked clay workmen. I noted the 
low sheds, the open street, the unobstructed use 
of ground that must be worth a thousand dollars 
an inch, for so lowly a purpose, and made up my 
mind that I was about to stumble upon one more 
strange freak of the Chinese character. '* It is 



THE EXECUTION GROUND. 249 

the execution ground," he replied, amazed at my 
lacking perspicuity. 

The execution ground is the most world-wide 
famous spot in Canton, the place of horrible 
tales and bloody deeds. I had pictured a Gol- 
gotha, a place of skulls, a sickening Black Hole, 
flocks of vultures, and herds of rats, and had been 
steeling my nerves all day. 

I found a potter's field, and one skull whose 
genuineness I doubted. It was another disen- 
chantment ; and yet the spot on which we stood, 
this little open lot in the heart of Canton, had 
drunk more blood than any other one spot in the 
world ; had felt the pressure of the knees of 
more victims than were killed in the Napoleonic 
wars. 

As we stood we were liable to be the unwilling 
witness of one or more executions. There is no 
set time ; the criminals never know the hour or 
the minute; neither does the tourist. The victims 
are taken from their prison cell in baskets, and 
dumped on this, their last spot among the living. 
With their hands pinioned, they are made to 
kneel and bend their heads — side by side in a 
long row. The presiding mandarin enters the 
open, preceded by a small table covered with red. 
The kneelers are not kept long in suspense. At 



250 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

a word from the official the naked executionei 
commences at one end of the waiting line, and 
with his sword mows off the bended necks, as the 
small boy with a switch plays havoc in a meadow 
of buttercups. 

If the Chinese were good Catholics, they would 
cross themselves whenever they passed this spot ; 
and if ghosts of the departed haunt the place 
of their death, every breath of air must have con- 
tained millions of their spirits. 

When the haughty Viceroy Yeh found that his 
soldiers, his cannon, his fire-ships, his fleet of 
junks, were as tilings of paper in the hands of the 
allies without the walls, his savage soul thirsted 
for blood. If he could not have the blood of the 
English, he would have blood ; so all that Christ- 
mas day of 1859, and every day after, until a Brit- 
ish marine laid impious hands on his queue, as he 
was vainly trying to scale the wall of his own 
yamen, he watched the heads of kneeling lines of 
his own soldiers fall under the hands of his gigan- 
tic, tireless butcher, until the sandy soil refused to 
drink more blood, and the streets ran red. 

In the corner of the field were several wooden 
crosses, to be used for the milder forms of execu- 
tion, such as strangulation, and *' Ling Chi," or 
cutting into a thousand pieces. 



THE WATER CLOCK, 251 

By this time the crowd had wedged in about 
us until there was no room for our earthly bodies, 
or for the souls of the departed ; and there was 
much murmuring because we did not bribe the 
head jailer to arrange for an execution. I gave 
the curator of the clay skull one hundred cash, 
and we escaped without stepping on any of the 
pottery. 

Not so very far from the execution ground — 
but just how far it would be impossible to state, 
except from the vantage point of a balloon — a big 
tower straddles a bazar-like thoroughfare, and a 
winding line of rough stone steps leads two stories 
to the Water Clock, or Clepsydra. It is running 
to-day as it has for five hundred years, and with- 
out a big bulletin board announces the time o' 
day. 

On the inner door was a notice that showed 
that the keeper realized that the ancient time- 
piece was a medium of " squeeze." 

" If every body who enter" 
" this room to see pour out " 
" leakies of copper pots " 
" ought to pay us ten cents." 

We paid the ten cents after a vigorous protest 
from Chue Sine, the interpreter, and entered a 
dark room which held three copper vessels, placed 



252 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

one above the other on a step-like a platform. In 
the bottom vessel is a float with an indicator scale 
passing through it, which, as the water fills the 
lower vessel, rises and shows the time The small 
holes in each pot were just large enough to allow 
one drop of water to escape each second. From 
the balcony of the tower we could look out on to 
the sea of roofs of the streetless city — roofs so 
etherial that the wonder is how they withstand a 
vigorous rainstorm. 

We left the viceroy's yamen a little after noon. 
I incidentally mentioned to Chue that we would 
be unable to do any more sight-seeing until we 
had partaken of some one's hospitality. The 
idea was accepted favorably, and our chairs were 
headed toward a flight of steps a quarter of a mile 
or so in length, and a hill where we were informed 
was a pagoda. In our American eyes it was only 
right that we should relieve our bearers by climb- 
the steps, but Chue preferred to ride ; he ex- 
plained that his trousers were stuffed with goose- 
feathers, and it was not comfortable to get unduly 
warm. The distance traversed from the moment 
we left the foot of the hill until we reached the 
gates of the big red " Five-storied Pagoda " was 
ground reserved for military purposes for so called 
defense. Fifty years ago the allies proved conclu- 



THE FIVE STORIED PAGODA. 253 

sively that the Chinese military science was obso- 
lete ; that their walls, hills, pagodas, smooth-bore 
cannons, belonged to the period of the siege of 
Constantinople ; and yet to-day these hills within 
the walls, embracing acres of the only desirable 
residential plots in Canton, are still kept inviolate 
by the command of some emperor of the Ming 
dynasty. The defenses of Hong Kong are only 
one hundred miles away ; they have had no more 
effect on the science of Chinese warfare than have 
the three hundred years of missionary labor on 
Chinese ideas of life and religion. 

The pagoda is untenanted save in the fifth 
story, where a Chinaman has two small tables and 
a box of tea. Chue Sine had provided us with a 
lunch from the hotel, and we added it to our host's 
tea. We paid ten Canton cents each for the use 
of the rickety table and a much-used table-cloth, 
and five cents more for a cup of tea made as an 
infusion and not a decoction ; but we paid nothing 
for the view, and it was worth the price of the 
pagoda. The pagoda itself is situated directly on 
the top of the wall — a shining mark for barbarian 
cannon. Directly below us, within the military 
reservation, is the government powder factory, 
directly in. line with all the shells that missed the 
pagoda. Whenever the mill accumulates a stock 



254 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

of powder that excels the demand, and there is 
danger of the mill being closed, the balance of 
trade is brought their way by the aid of a match. 
There have been two explosions within the last 
six months. 

The streetless city stretched away to the banks 
of the Pearl, with its maze of shipping, broken 
here and there by the towering pawnshops, and 
the open space about yamens and temples. With- 
out the walls the country is brown and hilly, and 
as destitute of population as though every soul 
demanded the protection of the crumbling walls, 
whose ponderous gates are still closed at six 
o'clock each night with a fanfar of trumpets. 
For two hundred years this warlike ceremony, ac- 
companied as it was with a show of such sublime 
confidence and high-bred arrogance, impressed 
and awed England and France. Even when the 
allies came over the brown hills with scaling-lad- 
ders and hand grenades, the chiefs of the city sat 
where we were drinking tea, and smiled at the 
inward-rushing band. They did not even pity 
them, they were beneath pity. Directly below, 
at regular intervals, were the cannon that were 
only waiting the match to eat them up. Sud- 
denly the Foreign Devils were over the walls, and 
swarming up the steps of the pagoda. The ar- 



ANCIENT DEFENSES. 255 

tillery had gone off, but no one happened to be 
within range. Afterwards the Tartar general, 
apologizing for his defeat, explained to Peking that 
the barbarians did not fight fair. They came in 
long, thin lines, at regular distances, half way 
between each cannon; and as the cannon were 
stationary, and could only be fired straight ahead, 
and as the barbarians kept out of range, no one 
was hurt. We laughed as we walked along the 
wall past one ancient gun after another. It was 
all so simple and ingenious, — this expecting an 
enemy to stand up before the mouths of the old 
pieces. The walls, however, are really impressive, 
broad enough for a carriage to drive on their top ; 
and if they were at Newport or on the Riveira 
they would become a famous promenade. There 
are lots of good building material in them ; and 
some day, when the utilitarians agree to capture 
Canton, it will go to make a city worthy of so 
great a population. 

Our pagoda was only five stories high, and 
quite a youngster in point of years. Five hundred 
years does not count for much in China. Later 
we visited the most perfect of all pagodas in Can- 
ton, — " The Flowery Pagoda," — which was nine 
stories, some three hundred feet high, and dates 
back fourteen hundred years. Each story repre- 



256 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

sents a Buddhist heaven ; and had it not been for 
the quarreling of our chair-coolies over the rem- 
nants of our lunch, and the yelping of a band of 
half-starved dogs without the walls, our " fifth 
heaven" would have been as delightful a place to 
spend an hour and eat our tiffin in as any well- 
regulated heathen heaven. Chue was telling us 
about his sickness. He was well now ; and he 
ascribed his cure to " Deerhorn " and " Ginseng." 
The medicines he had already shown us in a 
native shop. " I take three hundred dollars' worth 
of deerhorn and drink nine hundred dollars' 
worth of ginseng; now I well." One deerhorn 
of the best quality had cost him four hundred 
and fifty dollars, and one ounce of Manchuria 
ginseng, shaped like a man, a hundred dollars. 
I advised him to try cow's horn next time, and 
catnip tea, but there was no shaking his belief in 
the Chinese materia medica, including horned 
toads, peppermint-oil, orange-peel, and tigers' 
teeth, although otherwise he was a good Chris- 
tian. I asked Chue how he became a Christian. 
" I know very nice man in Australia ; he my 
friend ; he tell me Jesus come to earth to save 
me ; I believe him, so I Christian." 

The Jews and Canton are strangers. The Chi- 
naman leaves no pickings for vultures, rats, or 



CANTONESE ECONOMY. 257 

even Jews. The " chosen people " are easily 
beaten at their own game by the humblest shop- 
keeper, — the hardest workers and closest eaters 
on earth. No scrap or beast is despised in their 
system of economy; and their day contains 
twenty-four working-hours with no artificial divis- 
ion as to periods of rest. The sounds of toil and 
barter go on all night without seeming diminu- 
tion. Our chair coolies sleep while we eat our 
tiffin, or wander about the '' City of the Dead," 
or invade the dank shadows of a mouldy temple ; 
sleep sitting or lying with the innocence of babes, 
and the cheerful knowledge that they had nothing 
on worth stealing, while we pay for their time, so 
making double w^ages. When tiffin was finished 
they quarreled for the ends of crusts and the rich 
man's crumbs, not that they were hungry, but it 
was part of their inborn system of economy. 

Although a self-confessed Christian, Chue could 
not understand the mistress's repugnance to dogs 
as an article of diet. Even she had to confess 
later that they did not look half bad as they 
hung skinned and quartered on the walls along 
the street of the butchers, with only the bushy 
tips of their tails left to distinguish them from 
the sheep. There should be no " New World's " 
prejudice to dogs' meat. We went to a Chinese 



258 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

dinner, and enjoyed sharks' fins, birds' nests, and 
fungus, and a dish that was called minced quail, 
but which my communicative host told me later 
on was an expensive breed of dog that came from 
North China. We ate the menu to its sweet end, 
and agreed with him when he naively admitted 
that " European fare might be more substantial, 
but for flavor he preferred his own." Sharks' 
fins and birds' nests are expensive ; one dollar a 
pound for the first, and five dollars for the last, 
would be considered a luxury by the frequenters 
of Delmonico's ; but the very fact that their 
consumption is exclusively Chinese makes them, 
nationally, an economy, gives employment to thou- 
sands of people, relieves the demand, and thus 
cheapens beef and horse, the beasts of burden. 

We started out one morning to visit the " City 
of the Dead," the " Leper Village," and the mint. 
It is an hour's ride from the Shameen Gate to the 
door of the mint, outside the walls, within sight 
of the " Five-Storied Pagoda." As we jogged at 
a dog-trot through the maze of streets, we re- 
peatedly passed through the city walls. The dis- 
used gates are swung open ; and in their roomy 
arches peddlers, itinerant restauranters, merchants, 
and sewing-women sit. Above each gate is a fine 



CHAMBER OVER THE GATE, 259 

airy room, that faces both ways, and overlooks the 
sea of roofs. The breeze that we never feel flut- 
ters the bamboo curtains of the muUioned win- 
dows ; and the face of a woman of wealth peers 
downward, and watches our progress with amused 
wonder. I got in the habit of looking for these 
" Chambers over the Gate," and speculating as to 
their occupants. I asked Chue. He glanced up at 
some red signs covered with gilt Chinese charac- 
ters that stood in an umbrella stand by the side of 
the window, and replied, '* Velly large mandarin ; 
have three-bar flag." 

It was to a chamber over the gate that David 
came to weep for Absalom. I understand it now. 
In the courts and rooms of David's ''yamen," he 
was alone, and his grief ever before him. Those 
that came to him put on the long face that is sup- 
posed to accompany sympathy — all knew his loss, 
and all took pains that he should not forget it. 
He went to the chamber over the gate where he 
could see the workers, the merrymakers — the 
life of his nation ; where he could watch tourists 
from Canton and Cairo and Carthage, struofo-ling- 
with unaccustomed sights and uncatalogued smells 
below ; where he could smile, then laugh, and at 
last forget "my son Absalom." The orientalism 
of the Bible is forced upon one all over Asia. 



260 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

The " Chamber over the Gate " in my boyhood, 
pictures was a very forbidding kind of a prison, 
and the story of the " Blind leading the Blind " 
a most questionable undertaking. In Canton, we 
were continually running upon lines of blind beg- 
gars in single file, from the narrowness of the 
streets, each with one hand on the other's shoul- 
ders, the other holding a long slim staff, uniting 
in a kind of blind lock-step. A lone blind beg- 
gar would soon be knocked down and run over, 
and it was easy to pass him by without giving 
alms ; but six women made a procession that 
merited consideration, whatever your intentions 
might be. 

" The Blind leading the Blind ! " how it brings 
up bits of long-forgotten sermons in the old white 
" meetin'-house," and the lucid explanation of the 
good old " elder," who had about as much idea of 
the real significance of the full orientalism of the 
picture as the thin front row of squirming young- 
sters had of the moral of his lesson. We vaguely 
wondered why the blind didn't go arm in arm, ten 
abreast if necessary : no one would ever run over 
them in the dusty, oak-shaded streets of Whites- 
ville. 

The "Money Changers in the Temple ! " Here 
they were in Canton, hundreds of them, with their 



BIBLICAL ORIENTALISM. 261 

little stands, that you could knock over with your 
smallest finger, and send their piles of copper-cash 
rolling into the crowds under the pedestals of the 
gods, as were the tables upset in Jerusalem. Not 
plate glass and marble-countered banks demol- 
ished as I had fondly dreamed on that front row. 
So, too, the well-known picture of the " Last Sup- 
per " that to-day adorns the '' spare "-room walls 
of so many country homes is as impossible as it 
is absurd. Tables have never been popular for 
dining-purposes in Asia Minor, or knives and forks 
in common use. 

I never tired of these excursions through the 
century-old life of this typical city of the Chinese 
empire. One day we invaded a magistrate's ya- 
men, and became interested spectators of the trial 
of four miserable coolies for piracy and murder. 
In this city of two million inhabitants, there are 
but two magistrate's yamens, and they only hold 
court in the afternoon, a condition which speaks 
well for the general behavior of the people among 
themselves. There is nothing imposing in a 
Chinese court ; and the description of one is a de- 
scription of all of those to-day, and for the past 
thousand years. It is a low, one-storied building 
with grotesquely carved gates under a red-tiled 
roof that is surmounted with porcelain dragons. 



262 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

The gates, however, are only opened for an official 
who has the right to enter the presence of the 
magistrate in liis sedan chair. On either side of 
the big doors are the usual small ones for small 
people. Once through them, you come upon an 
open court with a stagnant pool in its center, or a 
neglected shrub. On either side of this court are 
the so-called offices of the yamen runners, four 
feet by six, with windows of oiled paper. Another 
pair of ponderous wooden gates, carved with green 
and blue gods, bars your entrance ; but there are 
the usual side portals open. 

No one questions you, or interferes with your 
progress ; although you have a feeling that you 
are doing a bold thing, and taking your life in 
your hand. You soon find, however, that you are 
actually approaching a court of justice which is, as 
it should be, open to all the world. The magis- 
trate's room would probably seat two hundred 
people if chairs were provided ; but there are only 
three of these articles in the room, and they stand 
behind a common kitchen table covered with 
turkey-red calico, a yard of which had also been 
thrown over each of the chairs. The place is about 
as cheerful as a stable, and a trifle cleaner than a 
hen-coop. On the walls hang an array of whips, 
bamboo rods, iron instruments of all sorts, chains, 



COURTS JNB PRISONS. 263 

and the cangue. There are no pretenses of order 
or decorum. To the right and left, facing the 
table, passages lead off to the cells where the 
witnesses and the prisoners are awaiting trial, all 
huddled together in their filth. 

Prisons in China are not places of punishment, 
but of detention, which amounts to the same thing. 
They are hell-holes, where an innocent man charged 
with the crime of alleged disrespect to his ances- 
tors is squeezed of every cash before he can get 
before the magistrate for trial. Even then, on the 
bare suspicion that he is holding a bit of property 
back, he is tortured until in sheer physical 
anguish he is glad to confess to a crime that 
he never committed. 

China is a country without lawyers, and without 
juries. So in theory at least, it is not necessary 
for a man to plead pauperism to get before a 
court. In practice, however, the yamen is filled 
with a species of lawyers called " searchers," who 
aid the judge to find "a punishment to fit the 
crime," by citing some similar case in the court 
records of the Sung or Ming dynasties. It hardly 
need be said that in a list of decisions covering 
two thousand years, the searchers, if well paid by 
the defendant, can dig up a precedent which 
would justify the magistrate in dismissing the case. 



264 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

In the rear of the red-covered table were the 
private offices of the officials of the yamen. 
While waiting, we had settled ourselves comfort- 
ably in the straight-backed magisterial chairs, and 
watched the rapidly collecting throng. A clerk 
placed some papers, a Chinese pen, and a pot of 
red and black India ink on the table. There was 
a stir about the door that led to the cells, then, 
marching to the cheerful accompaniment of 
chains, five manacled half-naked coolies were 
driven into the center of the court, and made to 
kneel before the table with their foreheads on the 
floor. There they remained until the magistrate 
entered quietly the stage door on the right, and 
spoke to them. No oath was administered ; for 
perjury is not a crime in China, as it is taken for 
granted that every man will lie as long as it will 
benefit him. The prisoners answered as they 
knelt, and in spite of their gaunt, haggard appear- 
ance, seemed to be quite cheerful under the cross- 
examination. They were charged with having, in 
company with others, robbed a junk up the West 
River, and of having beaten to death a native cus- 
toms' watcher who in a weak moment had tried to 
make them divide their booty with him. There 
was no order in the court ; and the spectators, as 
did we ourselves, crowded upon the prisoners, stood 



DETECTING OLD OFFENDERS, 265 

behind the judge, or took any place of vantage we 
chose. After a few questions, the magistrate, who 
carried on his quiet fire of questions as though 
there was no one witliin a hundred miles, arose, 
and passed around to the front of the table. The 
prisoners evidently understood the situation, as 
one after the other calmly held up the palms of 
his hands. The magistrate examined them criti- 
cally, and said a few words to the clerk, who im- 
mediately entered them on the records of the 
court. Our conjecture was, " He is a palmist, 
and is reading their character ; " but when he 
ordered his runners to raise their shirts so that he 
might examine their backs, his actions became per- 
fectly clear and reasonable ; he was looking for the 
marks of the bamboo. It simplified matters greatly 
to know whether they were old offenders or not. 

The jailer and executioner stood over them, 
evidently impatiently waiting for the word to 
apply the bamboo, in order to freshen their mem- 
ories or hasten their confession. He was a per- 
fect stage villain, with an enormous nose, which 
hung down to his chin like a great pear. He 
was proud of the muscles of his arms, and kept 
shoving back his loose sleeves. A few weeks be- 
fore one of our party had seen him behead nine 
men without missing a stroke on any one of them. 



266 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

The magistrate seemed a trifle nervous at our 
presence, although we tried to impress him with 
the idea that we were merely globe-trotters. 1 
heard one of his clerks whisper to him our names ; 
and shortly after the case was remanded, and the 
magistrate took French leave of the court. The 
Chinese are becoming sensitive of the criticism of 
the foreign devils. We possibly saved the cul- 
prits for the time from a bambooing, or possibly 
being strung up by the thumbs, but we certainly 
did consign them for another week to the living 
death of a Chinese prison. 

We met a man in one of the narrow streets 
wearing a stock, or cangue, on each side of which 
were pasted printed notices informing all the 
world that he was a thief, and had been caught in 
the act. One hand was tied behind him ; and in 
the other he held a bell, which he rang continu- 
ously to attract attention to himself. A policeman 
followed, who from time to time beat him with a 
bamboo. If some of our high-toned bank wreck- 
ers were driven up and down Wall Street in this 
fashion, at least one style of crime would become 
unpopular. 

It was some time before I ventured into the 
studio of a portrait painter. I had learned to 
credit the Chinese with great imitative skill in 




THE CANGUE : A FORM OF CHINESE PUNISHMENT. 

" It is the absence of nerves that enables the Chinese to endnre patn as well as toil."' 



IMITATIVE SKILL, 267 

many ways. They could take a suit of my best 
home-made clothes, and copy it exactly for one- 
tenth of what I had paid for the original, and at 
the same time use the best English and Scotch 
material, but I did not expect much from them in 
a purely artistic line. I was not impressed with 
their attempts to paint from living sitters. The 
result was too much like " the old Masters ; " but 
their copying in oil, engravings and photographs, 
on ivory were well done. The portrait of George 
Washington which they did for me from an old yel- 
low frontispiece in the " Constitution of the United 
States " would have done Trumbull or Stuart 
credit. It was four feet by three, and the charge 
was three dollars gold. There was no excuse for 
being over critical at that price ; and then I " skied 
it," so that it showed up at least three hundred 
dollars' worth. 

The Chinese artist belongs strictly to the 
" Purist School." He believes in detail, and 
maintains that the value of his painting lies in 
the fact that it shows things as they are ; he 
leaves nothing to the imagination. In the picture 
Yee Cheong did for me of the city and island of 
Hong Kong, painted presumably from a boat in 
the harbor, he insisted on marking in the zigzag line 
of the tramway that runs to the peak. I pointed 



268 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

out to Yee Cheong, who reminded me of the dean 
of the art department of my Alma Mater, that 
from his presumptive view point it was impos- 
sible to see the tram-car line, and that from no 
point in Hong Kong was it possible to see its 
entire course. He was imperturbable. 

" Picture no belong Hong Kong side, spose no 
got tram-car," he declared. " Spose you take 
picture Melican side. Melican man say Yee 
Cheong no savvy pidgin." 

I continued the discussion. I complimented 
the painting, which was good, and I felt I had 
convinced him. 

" Can do," he asserted. *' Spose you no wanchee 
tram-car, my no putty, Yee Cheong no putty he 
chop picture. Maskee." 

So the discussion ended. Yee filled in the 
mist-colored mountains as I ordered, faint and 
indistinct, etched here and there with higher 
lights or deeper shadows, just as I had seen 
it from day to day in all its changeableness. 
There was no white line zigzagging up its side, 
marking the course of the little railway of which 
Englishmen and Chinamen are both so proud ; 
but " Maskee ! " Yee Cheong did not honor the 
canvas with his name. 

" Maskee " expressed Yee Cheong's opinion of 



''MASKEEr 269 

my stubbornness. I was an outer barbarian, 
*' Maskee " — never mind. " I don't care, let it 
pass," and the subject was dismissed. Maskee 
expresses a volume. It is the refuge of the China- 
man. It closes and begins conversation, or it is 
an entire conversation in itself. 



270 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 



XIIL 

PEKING, THE CAPITAL CITT. 

[This chapter on Peking was written, at Mr, Wildman's request, by 
the Hon. Charles Denhy, for years resident in Peking, and minister of 
the United States at the court of the Emperor of China.] 

A DISTINGUISHED divine, who had hved 
many years in China, once told me that 
on a visit to New York he was requested 
to deliver a lecture on Chinese subjects. He ac- 
cordingly prepared an elaborate discourse, and was 
very much surprised to find that the most of his 
audience left, and those who remained seemed to 
be exceedingly bored. After a little while he was 
again invited to lecture. That time he did not 
write a line nor make the least preparation. He 
got on his feet, and he told exactly what he per- 
sonally knew, without ornament or effort. The 
life he had led, the people he had met, the scenes 
in which he had taken part, were described, and 
the audience was delighted. He had an ovation. 
On the few occasions that it has fallen to my 



LIFE IN PEKING. 271 

lot to speak of China, I have profited by this ex- 
perience with good results ; and if my readers will 
pardon me, there will be in this chapter no pecu- 
liar diplomatic disquisition, but simply an account 
of Peking as it was from 1885 to 1898. 

It may be well to preserve the flavor of a 
description which, possibly, no new man may here- 
after be able to write. The old charming dehoTi- 
naire life, the country life in a city of a million 
people, the friendliness of Prince Kung, uncle of 
the emperor, and Prince Ching, cousin of the em- 
peror, and of Li Hung Chang, and, possibly, the 
scholarly companionship of Sir Robert Hart, will 
never be resumed. Prince Kung, for many years 
head of the Tsung li Yamen, or foreign office, is 
dead. The gallant, the genial, the unassuming 
Prince Ching was reported as badly wounded while 
defending the beleaguered foreigners of the lega- 
tions. Sir Robert Hart, the scholar, the benefactor 
of China, the son of the Irish miller, whose an- 
cestors were ennobled for three generations, was 
among those reported dead ; wliile Li Hung Chang 
is in the sere and yellow leaf, seventy-eight years 
old, decrepit, and distrusted by the foreigner as 
well as the native. The empress, too, with a name 
so long that I can hardly write it, Tszehi Toanyu 
Kangi Chaoyu Chuangcheng Shokung Chinhien 



272 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

Chungsih, has changed her nature. From 1861 
to 1889 she ruled China strongly but kindly; and 
beneath her sway a fair degree of peace and quiet- 
ness prevailed all over the empire, and particularly 
at Peking. What may happen now lies beyond 
human ken ; but the life I am going to picture 
will, in all probability, not recur again. 

In 1885, in September, we went up the muddy 
Peiho from Tientsin to Tungchow in a house-boat 
drawn by men. Many a mile we walked along 
the tow-path through the flat fields from which 
the crops had been gathered. The river wound 
about Hke a ram's horn, and we could beat the 
boat for hours. We passed by great fleets of 
cargo-boats, bearing the tribute rice to Peking, 
which often were tied to the banks, which were 
crowded with the boatmen and their women and 
children. I am reminded that we saw a curious 
thing. Men were drawing water from the river, 
and pouring it over the rice in the holds of the 
boats. I asked what in the world that process 
meant ; and I was told that it was done to make 
the rice weigh more than it would if it were dry, 
so as to get more pay for the transportation. 
Thus early I was initiated into the mystery of 
" China as she is." 

At Tungchow, a hundred and twenty miles 



JPPROACHIHG PEKING. 273 

up, and fourteen miles from Peking, we were 
met by chairs and ponies, and started for the 
capital. Between Tungchow and Peking there 
is a stone road. It was paved at some remote 
period with heavy blocks of stone, but very many 
of them have sunk out of sight. The mind of 
man cannot conceive the torture of riding over 
that road in a springless cart. I did it once, 
and I have not feared purgatory any more. 

On this occasion we traveled over a country 
road parallel with the stone road. I call it a road 
by courtesy, but the roads in China are mere 
tracks made by the wear of centuries. As we 
were in chairs borne by men, of course we were 
not incommoded by roughness or inequalities. 
By degrees it became apparent that we were 
approaching a great city. There were files of 
donkeys bearing fat Chinamen ; wheelbaiTows 
with passengers balancing themselves on either 
side ; great wagons with teams of three, four, six, 
seven horses, hitched in the most curious manner, 
some by ropes tied around the axles. Occasion- 
ally there would be a mule, a horse, and a donkey 
inscrutably hitched together, but all doing their 
work. There were bearers, too, carrying enor- 
mous burdens, sometimes alone, and sometimes a 
dozen bearing one load. There were mule-litters, 



274 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

one mule in the shafts in front, and one behind ; 
and there were almost innumerable strings of 
camels plodding slowly along, each camel attached 
to the one before him by a string through his 
nose, while on the head one the driver slept as 
happily as he would have done in a bed. Usually 
there is one driver for six camels. Mounted cav- 
aliers there were too, some on high-paced ambling 
mules, others on rough Mongolian ponies, many 
wearing official hats made of straw and garnished 
with red horsehair. 

Little attention was paid by these underlings 
to the foreigner as they passed him. And so 
we went on feeling each moment that we were 
Hearing the quaint city which was to be our home 
for thirteen years. Close to the bank of the 
grand canal, looking at the great barges which 
convey merchandise between the locks — there 
being a separate fleet for each reach, because boats 
are not let down from one level to another — 
finally we came in view of the walls surrounding 
the city. It was the beautiful, splendid autumn 
of North China. The rain had quit falling in 
August; there would be no more until the follow- 
ing July. It was delightful to breathe the pure, 
invigorating air, and every object was distinct 
and clear. 



UP THE PEIHO. 275 

The first sight of the city wall is absorbing by 
its strangeness and its evident antiquity. One 
has to remember that the wall is more than three 
hundred years old, that it was not intended to 
resist artillery, but was meant to keep out the 
raiders who harried the Chinese. On the outer 
side of the wall one notices towers here and there, 
which are locations for sentries. These towers 
extend from Peking to the Great Wall of China, 
and when the enemy came his presence was 
heralded to the capital by burning wolf's dung on 
the top of these towers. As the stranger sees the 
wall for the first time, there is a weird beauty 
about it that comes from its height, and strength, 
and its antique gracefulness. The crenelated 
parapets, the bastions succeeding each other along 
its whole length, its gates, two-storied, with em- 
brasures and wooden cannon, the encientes around 
the gates, are all novel, and somehow all fit in 
with the half-naked donkey drivers, the quaintly 
dressed riders, and the camels. 

There are two cities at Peking, the Tartar and 
the Chinese. The Chinese city is south of its 
more pretentious neighbor, and its northern wall 
is for a considerable space the southern wall of 
the imperial city. The wall around the Manchu 
city is fifty feet high, forty feet wide at the top, 



276 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

and sixty at the bottom. It is riveted with 
heavy bricks set in cement, which is now as hard 
as stone, and the interior is of earth. The wall 
around the Chinese city is thirty feet high, twenty- 
five feet thick at the bottom, and fifteen at the 
top. The whole circumference is about twenty- 
five miles, of which sixteen are around the Tartar 
city. This wall is, or was, a godsend to the 
foreigner. No Chinese was allowed to go upon 
it; but the foreigner, by paying a small fee, could 
walk up an esplanade, and go entirely around if 
he pleased. Sometimes parties were made up to 
drink tea on the wall, and many a pleasant after- 
noon has been spent there. Along the sides grow 
trees of considerable size ; and the walk on top is 
invaded by small bushes, its use by the foreigners 
not being sufficient to keep down the vegetation. 
One passes through a gate in the Chinese city, 
travels along a road under the wall for a mile, and 
enters one of the great nine gates which give en- 
trance to the Tartar city. Under the archway the 
tide of travel has flowed until deep ruts are worn 
in the stone pavement. A great street stretches 
out before us, the principal business street — the 
Hattamen street as the foreigners call it, because 
the gate is named Hattamen. All the gates are 
closed at nightfall, and thereafter until morning 



THE FENGS UL 277 

are opened only once, at three o'clock, for the high 
officials to enter. It was on the Hattamen that 
Baron Ketteler was murdered. The houses are 
of one story, copying the Tartar tent, and the 
signs on the streets hang perpendicularly. No 
two houses are on the same hue. One always 
projects farther out, or is set farther in than its 
neighbor. The object of this is to deflect the 
bad spirits, who are not able to turn a corner. 
For this reason little clay dogs are put on the 
ridges of the houses, — sometimes a dozen of them 
in single file, — which drive away or catch the bad 
spirits. Feng-sui — literally wind and water, a 
geomantic principle — cuts a great figure in China, 
and no man builds a house without niaking sure of 
compliance with its dictates. When foreigners 
have sometimes disregarded the Feng-sui, riots 
resulted. 

In ancient times there was a sewerage system, 
traces of which are visible ; but it has long since 
gone to decay, and now the sides of the streets are 
receptacles for all species of offal. It is curious 
that the scions of the politest nation in the 
world use the streets — the sidewalks if there 
are any — for the basest and commonest purposes. 
Slush is dipped from the cesspools, and thrown 
on the streets to keep down the dust ; and the 



278 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

alkali so generated is offensive both to eyes and 
nose. After going a few steps on the street 
of the Hattamen, one comes to Legation Street, as 
the 'foreignei'S call it, but which the Chinese name 
" the Street of the Subject Nations." 

One great and unfortunate difference is to be 
noted between Peking and the ports at which 
foreigners have concessions. At the ports, such 
as Shanghai, Hankow, Shameen, and other places, 
tracts of land have been set apart for the foreigners, 
and on these elegant cities have grown up. There 
are few handsomer cities than the foreign city of 
Shanghai. Tientsin is a charming place, with its 
public gardens, its town hall, recreation ground, 
electric light, gas, water-works, improved streets, 
and a bund on the river. Shameen is on an island 
in the Pearl River, and is as pretty a spot as one 
ever saw. In these concessions the foreigners live, 
each one owing allegiance to his own country, and 
responsible to her laws civilly and criminally ; but 
as municipalities the towns are the most perfect 
specimens of republics that exist in the world. 
They embody exactly the principles of squatter 
sovereignty, except that the formality must be 
complied with of having the municipal regulations 
approved by the ministers of the treat}^ powers. 
China has absolutely no control over these con- 



THE LEGATIONS, 279 

cessions. Her legal writs do not run in their 
limits. The senior consul must countersign all 
warrants. An offender against law must be tried 
by his own consul. In Shanghai the power of 
China to arrest Japanese accused of being spies 
was gravely contested. 

These little cities and towns are imperiums in 
imperio — they are oases in the vast desert of 
Oriental surroundings. In them the elegances of 
life prevail. There are hotels, banks, theaters, 
clubs, — all the paraphernalia with which the 
Westerner surrounds himself to procure some 
consolation for his exile. Nowhere in the world 
more than in the far East is the pursuit of 
recreation so strenuously followed. The best 
rider, the champion golf-player, the expert rower, 
are heroes. To own a stud of ponies for the 
races is a patent of nobility, and to be the pos- 
sessor of a house-boat is an honorable distinction. 
These places remind the American of the old 
life in the South during the existence of slavery. 
An overflow of willing servants, a superabun- 
dance of riding-horses, chairs for every guest, 
hospitality without limit, characterize all the 
localities occupied by the foreigner. I have not 
space here to describe the kindness, the good 
feeling, the hearty welcome, which attend the 



280 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

coming of a guest. All the charming entertain- 
ment that refinement, courtesy, and elegance can 
provide is lavished on the stranger. 

But in Peldng there is no concession. It is 
curious that the allies, when they took Peking, 
did not seize a portion of the city for the use of 
the legations. It could easily have been done 
without harm to anybody. There are many spots 
in Peking well suited to the establishment of a 
foreign city. If this plan had been pursued, 
there would have been long ago at Peking an 
elegant quarter where a beautiful object lesson 
would have been displayed to the Chinese. A 
minor Paris, Berlin, or Washington would have 
furnished a charming, and possibly a safe, resi- 
dence for the foreigner. As it is, the legation 
houses are set down in the midst of the native 
dwellings. Adjoining my legation was a shop 
where straw was kept for sale, and the stacks 
were higher than our houses ; and when they 
caught fire, it required many hours' work to pre- 
vent our buildings from being burned up. The 
yamen promised me to require this man to lower 
his stacks, but when I saw them last they ^^ere 
nearly as high as ever. One hundred feet from 
my legation, a butcher slaughtered a dozen sheep 
a day in the street. We had to make a circuit 



MISUSE OF THE STREETS. 281 

to the middle of the street to avoid treading on 
the carcasses. 

While China is the most autocratic country in 
the world, it is at the same time the most demo- 
cratic. Through its length and breadth the people 
rule. They do not hesitate to drag a magistrate 
from his seat, and cuff and beat him; and when 
there is a drouth the gods are put out in the sun 
to let them see how they enjoy it, and when it 
rains too long the . same gods are lashed with 
whips in order to secure dry weather. 

So at Peking everybody uses the space in front 
of his store or dwelling as he pleases, without the 
slightest regard to the comfort of the general pub- 
lic. Great logs of wood are sawed on the streets. 
Booths are erected occupying half the width of 
some of the streets. Temporary houses are put 
up for funerals. All kinds of peddlers occupy 
every coign of vantage. The barber plies his trade 
wherever he can find a place to set down the box he 
carries, and on which his customer sits. The tables 
of the tea-shops take up all the sidewalk. The 
streets are public latrines, and the slops are all 
emptied into them. The walls are besmeared with 
filthy advertisements. Here and there localities 
are used for spreading out and drying manure. 
There was a notable one of these places nearly 



282 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

behind the German legation which poisoned the 
air for blocks around. Herr Von Brandt, the 
German minister, strongly attacked this nuisance. 
He received many promises, but the pile remains 
there yet. The chief use of the space outside of 
the city wall is to dry manure. When one com- 
plains of the horrid sights which are perennially 
in view, one is told that it is " old " Chinese cus- 
tom. I am afraid to say that Peking is the dirtiest 
city in the world, because there is Constantinople; 
but my opinion is that Peking is the filthiest of 
the world's cities. In the street exactly in front 
of Li Hung Chang's quarters there was a great 
cesspool into which all the offal of his large house- 
hold was emptied every day. 

Peking everywhere gives signs of decay. The 
great Boards where the public business is done 
resemble the stable-yards of a country inn. The 
streets are unpaved and rarely worked. Before 
the emperor goes out on the street a thin cover- 
ing of yellow dirt is deposited on it, and this 
is all the work that is done. In the center of the 
broad streets — and there are many broad streets 
in Peking — there is a raised embankment of 
earth, on which, during the heavy rains, the carts 
travel. When the deluge comes in July the city 
is a vast lake. Tradition tells of several people 



PEKING SOCIETT. 283 

who have been drowned in the streets by the over- 
turning of carts. Around Sir Robert Hart's fine 
place there comes in the wet season a vast lake 
which submerges streets and yards. One summer 
Sir Robert picked up in his grounds four fish half 
a foot long. It is a marvel where they came from. 
In these days the otherwise endless rounds of din- 
ners ceases. Locomotion becomes practically im- 
possible. 

Peking society is composed of the members of 
the diplomatic corps, of the imperial maritime 
customs, and of the few other foreigners, such as 
the bankers, who reside in the city. To these 
must be added the professors of the Tungwan or 
Imperial College, 

By an ingenious fiction the members of the 
diplomatic body constitute one family. It must 
be said that, in general, perfect harmony has pre- 
vailed in Peking. During a few years, recently, 
international rivalry to secure concessions and 
the seizures of the territory of China have pro- 
duced some friction in social circles ; but during 
my stay no body of people was ever more har- 
monious than were we. There was boundless 
hospitality, absolute equality, and a graceful cos- 
mopolitan refinement. Every man's position and 
his income were known. His place was fixed as 



284 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

by the laws of the Medes and Persians. Every 
minister ranked according to his arrival at Peking ; 
the oldest in time was the dean. The ladies took 
rank according to that of their husbands. On 
very rare occasions you might place a colleague at 
table below his proper seat, but etiquette required 
that you should secure his consent. There was 
once nearly a duel because a secretary was put 
below an interpreter. The secretary was ordered 
to Hayti to avoid bloodshed. Before my time a 
minister left the table because an inferior was 
placed above him. I vainly tried on one occasion 
to induce one of my colleagues to put an American 
senator's wife above the doyenne, who was also 
an American. He said the rules must be com- 
plied with, the doyenne must have the first place. 
After all that may be said, this etiquette is a neces- 
sity where the people of a dozen nationalities 
meet together. How else could the complex 
questions of social intercourse be settled ? 

Apart, however, from formal occasions, it must 
be said that no attention was paid to personal rank. 
The princes, the counts, the barons and baronets, 
— of whom there were many, — were simple 
human entities in the merry round of picnics, 
balls, races, tennis, theatricals, which succeed each 
other continuously at Peking. I remember that 



ETI^ETTE OF THE LEGATIONS 285 

one evening at the British legation I saw poor 
Baron Ketteler — who was recently killed — ac- 
coutred like a strong man, lift up with great exer- 
tion two big weights marked live thousand pounds 
apiece ; and a little while later the son of the Brit- 
ish minister picked them both up, and carried them 
in one hand off the stage. With such fooleries, 
but also with much fine music and many charming 
vaudevilles, the time of the winters was passed. 

Absolute freedom of intercourse exists among the 
legation people. You can drop in on a colleague 
at all hours. The ladies are intimate and friendly. 
Cut oft' from the world as we were from the 
middle of December to the middle of March, it 
was a test of good-fellowship to do something for 
the general entertainment. There was the club 
with a membership of forty, which changed every 
year. Of course there was a bar-room, a billiard- 
room, a tennis-court, a reading-room, and library. 
Here whist reigned in the early hours, sometimes 
to be superseded by poker later. At the whist- 
table the youngest British student was the equal 
of the oldest diplomat if he played as good a 
game. The wife of a Russian prince danced with 
a newly arrived recruit of the imperial maritime 
customs. Let it be said here that Sir Robert 
Hart selected the members of the indoor staff of 



286 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

the customs with great care. They were mostly 
graduates of colleges, and some of them bore the 
most distinguished names in Europe. In the 
general they were accomplished young gentlemen, 
who spoke all languages, and plaj^ed all musical 
instruments. They were absolutely equals in 
society of the secretaries and attaches, except, of 
course, at formal dinners. I wonder if in the 
cataclysm of China this fine institution is to go 
down. 

Twice a year there were two days racing four 
miles from Peking. These were gala days for na- 
tives as well as for foreigners. The members of 
the Tsung li Yamen came themselves, or sent their 
secretaries. For miles around countless hordes of 
Chinese came and surrounded the track. There 
were none but gentleman riders. Several weeks 
were spent in training, and all the temples around 
the track were utilized as lodges. This prelimi- 
nary exercise, and the cessation from alcoholic 
drinks and high living made necessary by it, were 
the best part of the performances. On these oc- 
casions there was a tiffin each day, on wliich there 
was toasting, and speaking, and unlimited fun. At 
the track there was no rank. The stewards ranked 
the ministers, and set the pace for the hilarity. 
Imagine now if you can that the countless Cliinese 



GALA DATS, 287 

who came to see the races, and wrangled and bet, 
and enjoyed their own games and refreshments, 
and were as friendly as could be, have burned the 
grand stand, and destroyed the stables, and ruined 
the track! At the last there was always a 
race in which the mafoos — hostlers — were the 
riders. They selected the best horses their masters 
had, and they rode like monkeys. Each horse knew 
his rider because he had trained him, and horse and 
man did their best to win the prize of silver dol- 
lars. From the on-looking myriads of Chinese, 
vociferous acclamations hailed the winner in the 
race. 

The life in Peking was not, however, all sport, 
though no doubt it predominated. . There were 
serious societies, devised for sober and scholarly 
people. The missionaries had monthly meetings 
of a literary society, at which papers were read 
on many interesting subjects, and discussion fol- 
lowed. When such men as Doctors Martin, Blod- 
gett, Owen, Sheffield, Lowry, Goodrich, and many 
others rose to elucidate some historical or eco- 
nomic question the hearer was well repaid for the 
listening. These gentlemen knew China as they 
knew their Bible, by heart. They had passed 
twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years in the study of its 
language and history. Intercourse with men of 



288 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

all nationalities had made them broad and lib- 
eral, while study and the tuition of others had 
sharpened their naturally fine intellects. As writ- 
ers of books, as teachers, as missionaries, these 
people will rank in the forefront of the benefactors 
of the human race. Alas — is this class to die 
out? Are the sweetness, the gentleness, the self- 
sacrificing spirit of the missionary, and his learn- 
ing, to be lost to the world? 

Besides the Missionary Society was the Asiatic 
Society, which was opened to the scholars of 
all nations. Here ministers, secretaries, attaches 
and interpreters met with the commissioners of 
the customs, the missionaries, the bankers, and 
the promoters, all equal, and contributing some- 
thing to the general knowledge. When one was 
not a sinalogue, and could not talk of the destruc- 
tion of the books by an ancient emperor, or of 
hieroglyphics found in an old temple, or the poet- 
ry of China, or the examination system, or other 
purely Chinese topics, he might read an essay on 
European art or literature or history. The use 
of no language was forbidden, though usually 
English or French was the spoken tongue. The 
society was a branch of the Asiatic Association 
of London. Some of its papers would have done 
honor to its parent. At the last accounts there 



THE HILLS. 289 

were many members of this association be- 
leaguered in the British Legation, and, no doubt, 
death has ere this claimed some of them. Among 
them was the great teacher and author. Dr. W. 
A. P. Martin, the foremost American in the far 
East. 

In the summer the diplomatic people, the mis- 
sionaries, and the families of the members of the 
customs, scatter to the hills. Twelve miles west 
of Peking the mountains rise from the flat plains. 
One of these peaks is three thousand feet high. 
On one spur eight temples are situated. This 
spur is about fourteen hundred feet high ; and on 
its precipitous sides are niched, amid groves of 
old trees, the charming resorts of the foreigners. 
Third from the bottom is the American temple, 
which has housed the legation from the time of 
Burlingame, 1863, to the present. Its Chinese 
name is Sanshanan, which means " Temple of 
the Three Hills." When Anson Burlingame was 
installed there. Sir Frederick Bruce, brother of 
Lord Elgin, occupied the temple, which is about 
fifty yards above it, called the " Temple of the 
Spirit Light." It has a fine pagoda, and a spring 
of delicious water. On one occasion the two 
ministers and their families ascended a rocky 
eminence near by, on whose side appears the 



290 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

strong resemblance of a great tiger. Burlingame 
got on a huge rock, and delivered a speech replete 
with wit, humor, and historic lore, in which he 
particularly extolled the Bruces, from him of 
Bannockburn — the lion-hearted — to Elgin, who 
made the treaty of 1861 with China. As he 
finished he named the spur on which they stood 
Mount Bruce ; and this name has among the 
foreigners superseded the Chinese name, and re- 
mains in use to-day. Dr. Martin, who was pres- 
ent, records this event. Not to be outdone in 
politeness, Bruce named another adjoining moun- 
tain Mount Burlingame. One may regret that 
the foreigner does not even leave to the Chinese 
the names of his hills ; but little do the gay rev- 
elers at the temples care for the memories of a 
decadent race. 

The general name for the hills — Patachu — 
the " Eight Great Places," remains ; and the 
Chinese still call the two peaks, one the " Tiger's 
Head," and the other '' Green Mountain." The 
temples all have names, — one the " Temple of 
Long Repose," and the highest of all the " Pearl 
Grotto." The hills are part of two great ranges, 
one fringing the Mongolian plateau, the other 
bounding the highlands of the west, and extending 
south for four hundred miles to the Yellow River. 



LIFE AT THE HILLS. 291 

It would take too much space to describe 
summer life at the hills. Etiquette is thrown 
aside. The closest intimacy prevails. Picnics, 
moonlight suppers, music, trips to places of in- 
terest, were the order of the day. Latterly 
Great Britain built a fine summer house close 
to the temples, which is reported to have been 
burned, but one cannot as yet credit any news 
from China. Lest the hills might be accounted 
an actual paradise, it is proper to record some 
of their defects. The gnat and mosquito were 
very bad, and occasional scorpions were to be 
found. Not on Patachu, but at a temple a little 
distance away, the second secretary of the Russian 
legation one summer killed by actual count one 
hundred and fifty-seven scorpions. From the 
hills one sees, eight miles away, the Luckachow 
bridge, which Marco Polo described in the eleventh 
century, and which is unchanged, except that 
two spans have been added to it. 

Let us remark, in passing, that this Italian gen- 
tleman, tourist, and " promotor," was reported to 
be the greatest liar the world ever produced, 
except Baron Munchausen ; but so far as I or 
others have traced his career in his valuable book, 
it has been found to be absolutely truthful. At 
aU events, both Munchausen and Polo have been 



292 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

thrown in the shade by recent performances of 
Shanghai newsmongers. 

To the Chinese, Peking is Peiching, the north- 
ern capital. For the sight-seer there are not many 
places of peculiar interest to visit. The Chinese 
are chary of allowing either their own people or 
strangers to penetrate into places of the greatest 
interest. The Temple of Heaven, for instance, is 
closed ; and except one dare-devil lieutenant in our 
navy, and Prince Henry of Prussia, nobody got 
into it while 1 was at Peking. The marble bridge 
also was a place of great resort for several years 
after 1885 ; but the empress-regent closed up the 
avenue to it, and no one has seen this beautiful 
structure for a long time. 

It has always seemed to me that the chief charm 
of foreign travel was looking at the va et le vient 
of the people, — the contemplation of street-life, 
whether on the Strand, or the Champs Elysees, or 
the six-feet-wide streets of Canton. At Peking 
one sees representatives of all nationalities, — the 
foreign diplomats of many countries, the Manchu, 
the Mongolian, the Korean, the men from Turke- 
stan and Thibet, Hi, Burmah, Siam, East India, 
and everywhere in the far East. Monks of all 
faiths, and speaking all tongues, are there, from 
the Buddhist fanatic parading with an iron spike 



COSMOPOLITAN PEKING, 293 

stuck through his cheek, or sitting in a box 
studded with sharp nails, to a bishop of the Eng- 
lish church, in pumps and silk stockings. One 
sees every species of costume, and all kinds of 
mounts, from a camel to a donkey. The tea-shops 
with their placards, " Don't talk about public 
affairs ; " the Moslem mosques, the great stores 
with their open fronts, the eating, the drinking, 
the cooking in the streets, are things which always 
seem new. 

Among the things that it is " the correct thing " 
to see at Peking are the temples t)f Confucius, the 
Observatory, and the Examination Hall. The place 
of most importance, the Temple of Heaven, can only 
be seen from the southern wall ; and the view is 
from a considerable distance. Often and often 
these places have been described, yet every gleaner 
is supposed to gather something of interest. Is it 
not curious that China should have so few remains 
of human art or labor that are worthy of descrip- 
tion? Almost the only relics of great antiquity 
are the series of stone drums in the Confucian 
temple. According to Williams they were dis- 
covered about A.D. 600, in the environs of the 
ancient capital of the Chau dynasty, and have 
been kept in Peking since 1126. " They are 
irregularly shaped pillars," he says, "from eighteen 



294 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

to thirty-five inches high and about twenty-eight 
inches across. The inscriptions are much worn, 
but enough remains to show that they commem- 
orate a great hunt of Suen Wang (B.C. 827) in 
the region where they were found." 

The scholars of the world will take off their 
hats reverently in the plain hall, eighty-four feet 
long, with a roof supported by pillars forty feet 
high, covering the single room, which is old and 
unkempt, cheerless, unornamented, but redolent 
with the savor of intellectual immortality. The 
great teacher struck the bottom rock underlying 
all human creeds. Four hundred years before 
Christ he gave to the world the golden rule : " Do 
ye not unto others what ye would not they should 
do unto you." At a missionary society meeting 
at Peking, I heard the members argue for several 
hours which was the better rule, this or the words 
of Christ : " Do ye unto others what ye would 
they should do unto you ; " and to the credit of 
these world's representatives of religious thought, 
be it said that they voted by a large majority that 
there was no difference in the phrases. 

The simplicity of the temple increases our 
respect for the great agnostic who pretended 
not to tell of the mysteries of the furture life 
because he said, " We do not know this life, how 



THE EXAMINATION HALL. 2<J5 

can we know the other ? " The dust of ages on 
the floor, the ceiling, and the tablets do not 
obscure the fame of the founder of Chinese ethics, 
the model philosopher, the moralist, whose teach- 
ing was so pure that the Christian is driven to the 
wild assertion that his followers learned the golden 
rule after Christ had uttered it, and then incorpo- 
rated it into his writings. Suppose they did. 
The offense pardons itself, for never did immortal 
phrase find a more appropriate setting than did 
this word talisman of humanity in the utterances 
of him who stands to-day the moral monitor of his 
race. Well might Confucius have said, " Homo 
sum et nihil humanum me alienum puto." "I am 
a man, and nothing that is human is indifferent to 
me." 

The " Examination Hall " teaches profound 
lessons to the student of history. Here every 
third year come the graduates of the provincial 
examinations to contest for the degrees which 
place their winners on the lowest round of the 
ladder of official place. The buildings are great 
sheds, divided into eleven thousand compartments, 
about six feet high, three feet broad, and six feet 
deep, in which old and young, high and low, pass 
three days writing essays on which their fate de- 
pends. It is not unusual for men of eighty to be 



296 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

among the number, and three generations have 
been at the same time represented in the attend- 
ance. On this system of competitive examination 
rests to a great extent the permanence of China. 
In the Taiping Rebellion in which twenty millions 
of people lost their lives, not one of the literati of 
this institution was found among the rebels. As 
you go down the coast of China you see towers 
here and there, and you are told that they were 
erected to commemorate the fact that a boy of 
that town carried off the honors at Peking. At 
the Confucian temple at Nanking the main gate 
opens only for the emperor and the graduates of 
the examinations. It is a festival in his home 
village when the hero returns, and loyalty to the 
throne pervades all his kin and friends. Flimsy 
writers, who visit Peking, hear stray stories pro- 
claiming that fraud and corruption dominate the 
literary proceedings ; but in fact China guards with 
the utmost jealousy every part of the examina- 
tions, and any official who connived at any decep- 
tion would lose his head. The system is the 
jewel of her constitution ; and, if it were extended 
to cover the elements of modern teaching, it would 
be the model for the Avorld's education. How 
hard it is for this ancient nation to get her dues at 
the hands of ignorant, sensational, flighty book- 



OBSERVATORT. 297 

makers! A residence of a few days, or even 
hours, in China Iciys the foundation for a great 
book in which the hapless people are derided be- 
cause they are not like Western people. I be- 
seech the world to go back to Williams, Martin, 
Edkins, Blodgett, Wildman, — real synalogues — 
most of whom lived a generation in the country 
which they describe. 

Everybody goes to see the Observatory. It is 
not far from Legation Street. It adjoins the 
city wall. No use is made of it now. It was 
established by the Jesuit Fathers more than three 
hundred years ago, and the great King Louis XIV. 
sent to it a celestial globe and an azimuth. In 
the court-yard below are curious disused instru- 
ments; and above are sidereal globes and triangles, 
and other things whose names even are unknown. 
There is no telescope. There was a clepsydra, or 
water-clock, but it has been dry many a year. In 
fact, in another place a professor of the Tungwen 
college has a tower, and a telescope, and there 
the astronomical work goes on in modern style 
and effect. 

I might mention other places in Peking, but I 
am threshing old straw. There is the Drum 
Tower, where the curfew sounded until the 
stranger came ; and the Lama Temple, where 



298 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

Henry Norman was mobbed; the big trees, some 
interesting Buddliist and Taoist temples, the 
French, Russian, and English cemeteries, the 
Hanlin Academy, and the six public Boards. 

To write of all these would require a book, and 
books on China bid fair to become as common as 
leaves in Vallembrosa. 

Inside the Tartar city is the imperial city. It 
is open to the world. In it is a great Catholic 
cathedral, the Teitang. Inside the imperial city 
is The Forbidden City where the *' solitary man " 
lives. His life is laborious. At one o'clock in 
the morning he commences to receive his high 
officials and others who are required to have 
audience. The members of the Grand Council, 
which is the real governing body of China, go in 
to see the emperor first in the morning. They 
are permitted to have cushions on which they 
kneel during the time that they are in his pres- 
ence. Then, come to wait on him, members of 
the Tsung li Yamen, and after that officials of 
other degrees of rank. All these are required to 
kneel on the bare floor. I have been told, how- 
ever, that many of those who have audience have 
cushions concealed under their flowing robes on 
which they kneel. 

As the temperature in Peking during the win- 



THE IMPERIAL CITY. 299 

ter is very low, and heavy furs are universally 
worn, the walk from the palace-gate to the house 
itself, which is about three-quarters of a mile, is 
very laborious for the old men who have to take 
it. This exposure was the cause of the death of 
Marquis Tseng. 

For the first time in the history of China an 
audience was granted to the foreign ministers in 
the precincts of the Forbidden City in 1894. The 
audience took place in the hall of literary glory. 
The occasion was the attainment of sixty years 
of age by the Empress Dowager, in whose honor 
autograph letters had been written by the chiefs 
of states of all the treaty powers. Thus ended 
the long contest for a complete recognition of the 
equality of the powers with China. When it 
began a " kotow " was demanded. When it 
ended, the foreign representatives stood on the 
raised dais by the table behind which the emperor 
sat. I prophesy that before long the dean of the 
diplomatic corps will lead the empress — the wife 
of Kwang Su — in a stately dance in a hall in the 
Forbidden City to the airs played by Sousa's band. 
By degrees foreign methods will have been 
pounded into China, and then what — we will 
have killed the goose that laid the golden ^<gg ! 
As an equal and active member of the family 



300 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

of nations her rigj-hts will be the same as ours. 
She will exclude whom she pleases, as we exclude 
her people now. She will forbid foreign ships to 
sail on her rivers, as do we. She will try Ameri- 
cans in her own courts, as we try Chinese in ours. 
But worst of all, she will become a protection 
country as we have become ore. Her almost 
inappreciable tariff of five per cent will assume 
vast proportions, and away will go our markets. 
In the Chinese matter let us follow Talleyrand's 
advice and go slow. The greatest diplomatist is 
he who does as little as he can. 



THE FUTURE OF CHINA. 301 



XIV. 



T^ 



THE BOXER UPRISING, 

[A.D. 1900.] 

HE world stood aghast in the midsummer 
_ of 1900 at the tidings from China. In- 

-*^ formation, more or less reliable, was 
flashed across the sea that told of riot and mas- 
sacre, and that hinted at tragedies even worse 
than these. In the closing year of the nineteenth 
century Occident and Orient seemed drawing 
toward a mighty and bloody struggle. 

The " Boxers," of which mention was made 
in preceding chapters, were proclaimed to be the 
cause of this uprising. It was more than the out- 
break of a fanatical and murderous secret society, 
however ; it was the protest of conservatism against 
progress, of isolation against absorption, of China 
undivided against Europe and her " spheres of 
influence," concessions and " leased " ports. It 
was, indeed, the cry of " China for the Chinese ! " 
that grew finally into the murderous slogan ''Death 
to Foreigners ! " 



302 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

The numbers of the foreigners in China had 
been rapidly increasing, Over twenty thousand 
foreign residents had found homes or business 
opportunities in the empire, outside of the leased 
ports ; and the introduction of foreign methods and 
foreign aggressiveness was not esteemed a benefit 
by a people whose ways and manners are so 
absolutely at variance with those of the " outside 
barbarians," for which they have no better or 
more expressive term than "foreign devils." 

Chief among these protesting Orientals were the 
members of the secret society which called itself 
Yi-Ho-Chuan, which being translated means, the 
Fists of Righteous Harmony, or Fists Clenched in 
Righteous Harmony to drive out the Western 
Invader. The boxer fights with clediched fists ; 
therefore, to this secret society, pledged to the 
strenuous and forcible extermination of the un- 
desired foreigner, has been given in English the 
simple title of " the Boxers." 

China is a land of secret societies, even as 
America is a land of clubs and fraternal organizar 
tions. Of these societies the oldest is the Triad, 
sometimes called the Hung League, or the Heaven 
and Earth Society, having for its symbol, or badge, 
a triangle. Out of this society of the Triad, the 
Boxers sprang ; and as many of the secret soci- 



THE BOXERS. 303 

eties of China have for their main objects antago- 
nism to the imperial house, reform in governmental 
methods and resistance to foreign aggression, the 
chief desires which united the Boxers were secret 
and open resistance to the dynasty in power, the 
expulsion of the Manchu rulers of the land, the 
*' removal " by edict or force of all foreigners, and 
the establishment of a purely Chinese dynasty 
upon the dragon throne. 

The Boxers are, therefore, not simply a rabble, 
sprung from the mobs or masses of China's dis- 
contents and malcontents. They are but one factor 
in a mighty nation which finds the world forcing 
its way through the open door, and seeks to pro- 
test against and resist intrusion. 

" The foreigners must go ! " is the cry of the 
Boxers; and to compel this withdrawal of the 
" outside barbarians " the Boxers and the great 
conservative element of the Chinese that sympa- 
thizes with this anti-foreign movement, suddenly 
finds itself in arms against the world. 

Chinese diplomacy claims everything and admits 
nothing. The ruling power that fills the dragon 
throne, the mysterious dowager empress and the 
boy emperor, Kwang Su, protested, as the anti- 
foreign element began to assert itself in 1900, 
that the movement was not countenanced by the 



304 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

throne, but was indeed a rebellious utterance 
against the imperial will. 

Gradually, however, the Boxer disturbance grew 
into an uprising. Taking its start in the province 
of Shantung, where the British and Germans had 
obtained footholds on the land in the concessions 
of Kiao-chau and Wei-Hai-Wei to the wrath and 
despair of all China, the hostility of the Boxers 
displayed itself in anti-foreign and anti-Christian 
riots, endangering the missionaries and their con- 
verts, destroying missions and school-buildings, 
and finally breaking out into open and cruel 
massacre. 

North China was drawn into the movement. 
The Boxers grew in the size and strength of their 
organization ; and instead of being, as the viceroy 
Li Hung Chang declared, " a rabble led away by 
fanaticism and anti-Christian feehng," the Boxers 
pushed from murder and plunder to organized and 
aggressive assaults upon all foreigners and foreign 
property. Officials, nobles, viceroys, and princes 
were in sympathy with, or actually in the leader- 
ship of, the uprising; and even the remarkable 
woman who for years has dominated and shaped 
events in China was the unavowed, but evident 
protector and instigator of China's uprising against 
the hated foreigner. 



THE UPRISING OF 1900. 305 

In May, 1900, the turbulence and persecutions 
of the Boxers became too pronounced to be longer 
permitted by the outside world. Commercial, 
political, and religious interests in the empire 
were so seriously jeopardized and threatened, that 
the great European powers addressed a joint note 
of protest and demand to the Tsun-li-Yamen, or 
foreign office, of the Chinese government. 

But the "foreign office" of China is a diplo- 
matic body which, as usual, denies everything, 
promises much, and does nothing that is expected 
of it. The protest of the powers, through their 
ministers, met with such indifference and absence 
of action, that the representatives of the Powers 
decided on a " demonstration " in the harbor of 
Taku. This was that seaport of Peking, where, 
in 1857, the adobe forts which the natives con- 
sidered impregnable had been battered to pieces 
by the guns of the British navy. 

Great Britain and Russia, France and Germany, 
Italy, Japan, and the United States, dispatched to 
the port of Taku one or more of their warships 
nearest at hand, and prepared to enforce the 
demands already made, that China take instant 
measures to suppress the Boxer society, and pro- 
vide guaranties for the protection of foreign sub- 
jects and citizens in China. 



cy 



306 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

When this was not done — or, rather, when the 
halting promises of the diplomats of China's for- 
eign office were shown to be but a mockery of 
action — the allied naval forces at Taku drew from 
each of the warships a detail of sailors and marines 
and dispatched them to Peking as additional 
guards for the foreign ministers, ambassadors, and 
officials on duty at the court of Pekin. 

Naturally resenting this show of force, and re- 
garding the whole matter from an altogether 
different standpoint from that occupied by Euro- 
peans, the Chinese government objected even 
while seeming to assent to the methods of the 
foreigners ; but the people, especially those favor- 
able to the Boxers, or stirred to anger by their 
endeavors, raised the alarm that the "foreign 
devils " were preparing to invade the empire, and 
proceeded to register their protests in blood and 
plunder. 

China is the land of convservatism ; but, as her 
story shows, discord and rebellion have perpetually 
smothered beneath her conversatism only to 
break out into revolution, upheaval, and dynastic 
changes. 

Into this tendency toward revolt, there came, 
through years of contact with another civilization, 
a growing element which sought to force China 



FOR THE RELIEF OF PEKING. 307 

out of her generations of conservatism, and bring 
her into step with the enlightened nations of the 
world. A powerful reform party, itself in a 
measure a secret society, was organized, and the 
best, most intelligent, and most progressive among 
the Chinese at home and abroad were enrolled as 
members. This reform party sought especially to 
free the young emperor from the domination and 
control of the despotic empress dowager, and 
place China in the same advanced line that Japan 
had taken, and which the young emperor had once 
attempted to occupy. Naturally, the imperious 
old dowager, a very Empress Wu in methods, 
craft, and energy, resented this blow at her power, 
and, becoming more reactionary than ever in her 
antagonism to new ideas and reform leaders, per- 
secuted, punished, or expelled them from the 
empire. 

The growing number of Christian converts 
among the Chinese was viewed with alarm by the 
reactionary party, the imperial government, and 
the restless champions of '' China for the Chinese," 
such as composed the Boxer society. The more 
Christian converts made, the closer was China 
drawn towards the reform party, and especially 
toward those " foreign devils " who were gradu- 
ally forcing their way into China, occupying strips 



308 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

of territory, and becoming more and more firmly 
established on Chinese soil. 

The outbreaks against the missions and the 
converts which in May, 1900, precipitated the 
Boxer trouble, and led to complications with 
the representatives of foreign powers in China, in- 
creased in intensity, as success in rioting and mas- 
sacre led to new outbreaks. Although indications 
of this turbulence had been numerous, few among 
the foreign residents of China had any inkling of 
what was in store for them, though some of them 
discovered the gathering cloud, and sought to give 
warning. 

But the Boxer disturbance, begun in an obscure 
way, was found to appeal to the masses by its 
successful harrying of the foreigners ; it appealed 
to the ruling classes by the possibilities it opened 
for successful resistance to these same foreigners 
and their final expulsion or extermination. The 
government of China, while assuring the foreign 
ministers, first, that the Boxers were but a rabble 
who need not be feared, and, later, that they would 
at once be suppressed, secretly countenanced the 
riotous disturbers, and, as usual, while promising 
one thing did quite another. 

When, at last, the foreign representatives 
united for the protection of their respective inter- 



DUPLICITY OF GOVERNMENT 309 

ests and countrymen in China, and the naval 
demonstration was made at Taku, and when, a 
few days after, the guards about the legations in 
Peking were strengthened by details from the war- 
ships, the Chinese of the northern provinces 
became more inflamed against the " outside barba- 
rians," and breathed out " threatenings and slaugh- 
ter " against missionaries, ministers, and marines. 

All that was needed for the uprising of the 
Boxers and their sympathizers was a capable 
leader. Matters were fast developing that would 
bring such a leader to the front. Missionaries 
and railway engineers — pioneers of civilization — 
were threatened, attacked, and obliged to fight or 
flee ; refugees hastened to the coast ; ■ more than a 
thousand Europeans and Americans were gathered 
within the walls of Peking, under the protection of 
the legations ; and when an open conflict south of 
Peking, between Boxers and a detail of Cossacks 
marcliing to the relief of certain imperiled Belgian 
refugees at Pao Ting Fu, led to more excited con- 
ditions among the natives of the provinces along 
the Yellow Sea, the consuls at the treaty port of 
Tientsin announced to the admirals at Taku that 
the situation was most alarming, and the " Pow- 
ers " decided to take further steps to protect their 
interests and subjects in China. 



310 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

The rage of the Boxers and their riotous con- 
tingent was especially directed against the rail- 
ways, which were slowly but surely stretcliing out 
lines of civilization across the great empire. 
Rails were torn up, stations wrecked, and supplies 
destroyed ; and when at last the chief line of com- 
munication between the capital and the sea, be- 
tween Peking, and Tientsin, was cut, the naval 
forces of the foreign powers in the harbor of Taku 
determined that something must be done at once. 
Two thousand marines and blue-jackets drafted 
from the various warships were placed under the 
command of the senior naval officer. Admiral Sey- 
mour of the British navy; and on June 10th this 
international column marched out of Tientsin 
on the way to Peking to repair the railway, and 
then march to the relief of the foreigners and the 
legations who were practically imprisoned in the 
capital. 

This was taken by the Chinese as an open 
defiance. Rioters became fighting-men, and the 
expedition under the lead of Seymour was speed- 
ily surrounded by an overwhelming force. Its 
communications with the coast were cut, and for 
days not only the ministers and foreigners in 
Peking, but Admiral Seymour and his little com- 
mand, were completely lost, while only vague and 



»(>«>/»«/*»» o/ M*>0;?»//< 




li h Of fh^hin 



A BIRirS EVE VIEW 
FROM THE GULF OF PE CHILI TO PEKIN. 

Showing the route of the Relief Expedition of iqoo. 



SETMOUR'S ADVANCE. 311 

terrible ruraors as to their fate shook the nerves 
of two continents. 

Thereupon the powers, angered at the indiffer- 
ence of the Chinese government toward its treaty- 
stipulations, and believing that some base of oper- 
ations was necessary if a conflict with the riotous 
elements in China was necessary, determined to 
make the harbor of Taku such a base. They 
demanded of the Chinese commander of the forts 
at Taku the temporary possession of his defenses, 
which was of course refused ; and the refusal was 
emphasized by the guns of the forts firing upon 
the foreign warships. This was startlingly like 
war ; but the powers were not at war with China, 
for the Chinese government still repudiated the 
Boxers, and promised their suppression and pun- 
ishment. To attack the forts at Taku would be 
to lift the trouble out of a riotous disturbance to 
an actual conflict; and certain of the international 
naval commanders, especially Admiral Kempff of 
the American navy, did not feel that their orders 
from home authorized them " to initiate any act of 
war with a country with which my country is at 
peace." 

Events proved the wisdom of Admiral Kempff's 
course ; but the other commanders decided against 
him, and on the 17th of June the foreign warships 



312 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR. 

attacked the mud forts of Taku and after a bom- 
bardment of six hours, silenced, captured, and 
occupied them. 

It was a victory for the international fleet, but 
it had disastrous results. The boom of the for- 
eign guns at the mouth of the Pei-Ho River 
changed the condition of things at once. Behind 
the adobe walls of Taku were trained artillerists 
and foreign drilled soldiers of the Chinese army ; 
the attack had been upon government property ; 
and it was, as Admiral Kempff declared, an act 
of war. 

It had that effect upon China ; for even while 
the government with characteristic unreliability 
protested and promised, it also hurried troops into 
the disturbed section. A Chinese army gathered 
about Peking; a Chinese army marched toward 
Tientsin ; and the legations and refugees at 
Peking as well as Admiral Seymour's relief col- 
umn, were placed in still greater danger. 

IMore than this, the bombardm.ent of the Taku 
forts brought to the front a leader for the Chinese 
forces, — the Manchu prince, Tuan, athlete, rough- 
rider, and frontier fighter, a bitter hater of all for- 
eigners, and a member of the Boxer society. 

He speedily became not only the head and 
leader of the Boxers, but the dominant power at 



GATHERING OF CHINESE ARMY. 313 

Peking, overshadowing not only the timid and bull- 
dozed emperor, but the strenuous empress as well. 
A great Chinese army of experienced and foreign-, 
drilled fighting-men gathered for the defense of 
the capital and the extermination of the "foreign 
devils," and the Chinese situation commanded the 
attention of the world. 

The extermination of the " foreign devils " 
seemed but a matter of time and quick action. 
For while the powers hesitated over a policy 
which might jeopardize the interests that were 
jealously guarded against each other as well as 
against China, and feared that individual or joint 
action even, might be bad for commercial and 
political interests, Admiral Seymour's hard-fight- 
ing allies were endeavoring to force their way to 
the relief of the refugees in Peking. 

" A great foreign army is marching on Peking," 
the Boxers and the Imperial troops alike declared; 
and looking upon Admiral Seymour's force as the 
advance of the great army of invasion, they pre- 
pared to surround, defeat, and exterminate it. 

They accomplished the first two plans ; but it 
is not easy even for a great Chinese army to ex- 
terminate a well-led, well-drilled force of allied 
fighters, selected from the fleets of Great Britain, 
Russia, Germany, France, the United States, Italy, 



314 CHINA'S OPEN BOOR, 

Austria, and Japan. Day after day the little army 
was attacked ; day after day they fought off their 
assailants. With communications cut, the rail- 
ways destroyed, provisions running out, the sick 
and wounded becoming each day an increasing 
obstacle to advance, and with a host of aroused, 
revengeful, determined, and relentless Chinese en- 
circhng and pressing upon them, the allies found 
advance in face of such odds impossible, and when 
within twenty-three miles of Peking they deter- 
mined to withdraw. 

Retreat was now almost as hard as advance ; 
but, fighting step by step, they slowly fell back 
toward Tientsin, and, capturing the imperial 
arsenal above that city, found there sufficient store 
of rice and ammunition to hold out against tlie 
besiegers until a relief force of Americans and 
Russians, undismayed by a first repulse, forced 
their way through the Chinese hosts, and relieved 
the beleagured relief column. 

This relieving the relief force which could not 
relieve Peking left the endangered foreigners with- 
in the walls of the capital in still greater peril ; 
for the attempt of the allies aroused the Chinese 
to fresh anger, and the thousand or more refugees 
were practically imj)risoned within the *' com- 
pounds " of the legations, from which communi- 



ANTI-FOREIGN MOVEMENT. 315 

cation with the outside world was absolutely 
denied them. 

Meantime reinforcements to the International 
forces in and about Tientsin swelled the allied 
army. Fourteen thousand troops had already been 
landed ; and additional soldiers and seamen, with 
warships and supply sliips, were dispatched to the 
harbor of Taku. 

The Chinese also were massing for resistance ; 
and Prince Tuan, in command at Peking, with 
his soldiers and Boxers quickly invested Tien- 
tsin. A force of fully a hundred thousand men 
controlled the country about Tientsin, most of 
them well drilled, and supplied with all the arms 
and implements of modern warfare. Inflamed by 
these preparations for conflict, all Northern China 
fraternized with the Boxers ; and proclamations 
calling upon all loyal Chinamen to expel the 
foreigners were posted throughout the northern 
provinces. The treaty ports were threatened, 
refugees crowded the foreign settlements, and de- 
struction and riot were everywhere imminent. 
The anti-foreign movement extended south and 
west ; it broke away from the control of the crafty 
dowager empress, who had abetted and wished to 
direct it, and the influence of Prince Tuan over- 
topped all others. 



316 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR, 

/ It was clear that the Chinese forces in and 
about the native portion of the city of Tientsin 
must be assaulted at once, if the " loss of pres- 
tige " resulting from the defeat of Seymour's at^ 
tempted relief expedition were to be overcome. 

--The allies acted at once. Three desperate at- 
tempts at assault on the native city, and against 
the Chinese troops, were made on Monday, Wednes- 
day, and Friday, the ninth, eleventh, and thir- 
teenth of July. The Chinese were beaten at the 
arsenal and at the railway station ; but when, on 
Friday, the thirteenth, seven thousand allies 
stormed the walls of the native city held by 
twenty thousand Chinese armed with rifled and 
machine guns, the allies were repulsed with heavy 
loss; and the disaster was only retrieved by a 
second desperate assault when, on the 17th of 
July, a breach was made in the walls. Through 
this the allies charged, and carried the defenses by 
storm, driving out the routed Chinese, and occu- 
pying the native city and its fortifications. 

The fall of Tientsin was a double victory for 
the allies. It secured and protected their base of 
operations and concentration, and restored the 
prestige of their arms, which the Chinese, first 
victorious, seemed to have destroyed. At once, 
as reinforcements began to arrive, dispatched, by 



FALL OF TIENTSIN. 817 

the several governments, an army was concen- 
trated for the march on Peking through a country 
held by a rapidly increasing Chinese army com- 
manded by Prince Tuan, and determined to arrest 
and drive back the foreign invasion. 
y Meantime the world waited for tidings from 
Peking, where the ambassadors and ministers of the 
great powers, and the refugees from beyond the 
gates, were crowded within the walls of the lega- 
tions, besieged by a relentless host of Boxers and 
Imperial troops. Tidings came, but none were 
reliable. Direct information from the beleaguered 
" legationers " could not be obtained ; and the 
news that came through Chinese sources was as 
conflicting as it was terrible. Details of horrible 
massacres, assurances of absolute safety, stories of 
determined resistance, and tales of decimation by 
attack and starvation, pressed closely upon each 
other until none knew what to believe, the hope- 
ful hoping, the despondent desponding. After 
disheartening delays, and in the face of home op- 
position, the allied army at last moved forward 
toward Peking ; and at daybreak on the fifth of 
August, sixteen thousand of them defeated, at 
Peitsang, ten miles from Tientsin, a great Chi- 
nese army, which disputed the foreign advance. 
On the sixth of August, Yangtsun, the second 



318 CHINA'S OPEN DOOR. 

station on the way to Peking, was captured by the 
allies, and the Chinese showed signs of breaking 
before the advance of the International columns. 

A victory is for the Chinese the strongest of 
all arguments. If the advance on the capital 
prove victorious the end is not far off; but the 
fate of the imprisoned ones in Peking is still in 
doubt; and the dreadful mystery remains a mys- 
tery even as this book goes to press, although the 
indications point to lying Chinese rumors and the 
pluck of the *' legationers." 

But victory is no easy task. Even the battles 
at Peitsang and Yangtsun were won by the In- 
ternational forces at heavy cost ; and the allies, 
pressing forward in the advance on Peking, pledged 
to punish and avenge, must face a vast army of 
disciplined and undisciplined Chinese troops 
massed before the closed door that conceals the 
fearful mystery of Peking. 

Thus the world waits expectant, while China^ 
so often desolated and so often overrun, yet never 
conquered or controlled, rouses herself for the 
final conflict between the forces of conservatism 
and civilization which, through blood and ven- 
geance, through diplomacy and death, rages around 
the oftrassaulted, desperately defended portal of 
China's Open Door. 



As Talked in the Sanctum 

By ROUNSEVELLE WILDMAN, U.S. Consul- 
General at Hong Kong; author of ** Tales of the 
Malayan Coast/* etc. I2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.00 



MR WILDMAN was at one time editor of a 
prominent magazine on the Pacific coast. He 
here presents, in a charming and attractive volume, 
the talks on men and things that occupied himself 
and his friends — the Contributor, the Poet, the 
Reader, the Parson, the Office Boy and others as, 
day by day, they met to discuss, dissect and talk over 
the world and its happenings as these appeared to 
the " Senate " of the editor's sanctum. It is a book 
that will be found at once entertaining, amusing, 
suggestive, philosophic and delightfully real. 



Tales of the Malayan Coast 

By ROUNSEVELLE WILDMAN, Consul-General 
of the United States at Hong Kong. One volume, 
J2mo, illustrated by Henry Sandham, $1.00 



A NOTABLE collection of Malayan stories and 
sketches reproducing both the atmosphere and 
flavor of the Orient, and emphasized also by a dash 
of American earnestness and vigor. The book is 
dedicated by permission to Admiral George Dewey, 
Mr. Wildman's "friend and hero." 



Eben Holden. 

A Tale of the North Country. 

By IRVING BACHELLER, author of '' A Master 
of Silence/^ I2mot cloth, gilt top, rough edges. $1.50. 



A REFRESHING story of the "plain people" of 
country and town. The " North Country " is the 
farm-land of St, Lawrence County in Northern New 
York. Uncle Eb, — hero, " hired-man " and border phil- 
anthropist — is a lover of animals, of nature and of all 
creation. The scene shifts to New York in war time, 
and the story of the rout at Bull Run is unsurpassed in 
realism. Altogether it is one of the brightest and most 
popular of recent books, for it appeals to that love of 
mingling sentiment and humor that all men and women 
like. 

The Last of the Flatboats. 

A Story of the Mississippi and its Inter- 
esting Family of Rivers. 

By GEORGE GARY EGGLESTON, author of 
'*The Wreck of the Redbird." J2mo, cloth, illus- 
trated by Charlotte Harding. $1.50. 



THE story of five western boys who take a flatboat 
on a venture to New Orleans. They are bright, 
apt, and intelligent young fellows, and find fun, 
adventure, and profit in their scheme. This book is an 
absolute storehouse of mid-west facts, but it is also 
full of action, manliness, endeavor, and adventure. 

LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY, . . BOSTON. 



H 79 831 









^°^ 



-i 














-V .♦. "-^ --.o" .0 


















1-^" 



•^. 












i.;^*^ V'^^V \**'^^'/ 



J' \. *' 

0^ "^ ..-.7 













v^ PreservationTe 






5^^vr, 






^5- 



<#» •:^>j>-* 














^- ^ov^ :-^l^: '^-''o^ : 



o > 






,H«>*. .> 







iJbJaRV of congmss 





0Q0l5H736b0 



